European officials on Monday acknowledged weaknesses in the computer models that guided their decision to ground thousands of flights during the past week following a volcanic eruption in Iceland.
Many of the flights would have gone ahead under US aviation standards, they said, and urged that these be considered in the future.
The admission is likely to provide ammunition for critics who believe that authorities have shown excessive caution in the wake of the eruption. The airline industry, in particular, has argued that the no-fly zone over much of Europe should be eased.
It is estimated that airspace closures are costing airlines $200m a day in lost revenue....
In the US, air carriers are left with the responsibility to determine whether or not it is safe to fly – a system that [EU director-general for mobility and transport Matthias] Ruete said Europeans should consider adopting in the future. “The American model is not a model of less safety. You just need to look at the statistics to see that,” he said....
I'd just add that the politics of this are highly unusual. Ordinarily, it's quite easy to point to the direct costs of less stringent regulation, and more difficult to point to the indirect gains. In this case, however, it appears that even Europeans have recognized that maybe they were a bit too risk-averse.
Day two of the Brussels Forum had more off-the-record events, but here are the juicy tidbits:
Note to the Obama administration: Indians across the political spectrum are thoroughly underwhelmed with your approach to South Asia to date. Also, they'd like you to cut out the complaints about offshore outsourcing. If not, Boeing is going to feel a world of hurt.
Iain Johnston has characterized China as a temporary status quo power. Speaking to the Chinese attendees, there's a lot of "after the crisis" talk - i.e., after the crisis, China is not going to be a status quo power. The big question, of course, is whether what China does during the crisis constrains its options afterwards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke, and let's just say that the Russians do not do soft power terribly well in Europe. Lavrov insisted that Russia needed new security structures based on hard law and not "political commitments." Strangely enough, he failed to reconcile this preference with his explanation for what happened in Georgia in 2008. He was pretty contemptuous of his co-panelist Javier Solana, as well as any questioner who challenged him (this included Anne Applebaum and John Kornblum). As a result, a subsequent panel on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall mutate into a let's-bash-Russia bitch session.
It's kind of difficult to listen to either the Japanese or Russian participants without thinking "demography is destiny, demography is destiny...."
Gallows humor from a Financial Times employee: he described his niche as, "being in one industry that's f***ed writing about another industry that's f***ed."
World Bank President Bob Zoellick articulated the whispered fears of a great many attendees - if the current set of stimulus packages fails to return the global economy to positive growth by the summer, there is a genuine fear of the next policy steps will be. There's been a lot of protectionism in the past six months, but much of it has been of the ticky-tack variety. Without positive job growth, the fear is that the protectionism will become much more real. The Brazilian Minister for External Relations observed that, "protectionism is a contagious disease." One could envision a 21st century version of beggar-thy-neighbor policies in the form of competitive "quantitative easings."
My observations and reportage from the first day of the 2009 Brussels Forum:
The day starts with me being seated next to the CEO of The Elders. In a display of profound cowardice discretion on my part, I choose not to mention this blog post at all.
The session opens with German Marshall Fund president Craig Kennedy thanking the myriad donors -- Fortis, Daimler, the Belgian government, the Latvian defense ministry, etc. I think to myself, "how many of these institutions will not go bankrupt this year?"
The first session featured Bob Kagan, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Carl Bildt, and Mark Malloch Brown, moderated by the BBC's Nik Gowing. The most revealing thing said during the session was when Kagan confessed, "I don't understand anything that is going on in the economy." This is a big problem with foreign policy wonks -- to many of them know too little about economics (this explains my man-crush on Bob Zoellick, by the way). Props to Kagan for at least admitting this fact.
The second most revealing thing about the session was when Gowing offered John McCain a chance to say something/ask a question from the audience, and he passed. What a difference a year makes.
Beyond that, there was mostly a lot of sniping between Slaughter and Kagan. Slaughter is still moving down the learning curve on speaking in sound bites -- at one point she said "Europe has a plural head, but still one head." Kagan has done this many times before, and was therefore a bit sharper. On the other hand, he did not like being pushed into such an oppositionalist position by Gowing. Afterwards he lamented, "I'm don't want to be the Simon Cowell. I Why can't I be Paula Abdul!"
Senator Bob Casey (D, PA) then gave a very long-winded introduction of the congressional delegation. This was boring, except for the fact that Casey forgot to introduce McCain. Again, what a difference a year makes.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barrosso was next on the docket. He tried his best to argue that the EU was doing its part on fiscal expansion, that the just-concluded EU summit was a success, and that the transatlantic partnership was never better. It was, in other words, pretty boiler plate. Later in the evening, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek undercut each of Barrosso's talking points. He described the same EU meeting as "difficult," and challenged the EU to "speak less and participate more." Topolanek then declared that, the "Eurocentric days are over" for the United States.
As you faithful servant, I intend to observe and report on everything. In fact, you should think of me as the mall cop of the Brussels Forum -- which is a big step up from blogger.
If, for some reason, you do not trust my reportage, you can always watch it yourself. Except for the late-night drinking sessions, of course.
Look through the agenda, and if there's a pointed question you would like me to ask, post it in the comments.
Alex Massie throws some cold water on the idea that the mere act of electing Barack Obama will lead to more cooperation with Europe on key trouble spots like Afghanistan or Iran:
Perhaps Obama really can persuade European public opinion. But since, as matters stand, no-one thinks there's a military solution to the Afghan problem I'm not quite sure what Obama can offer to make the mission any more appealling. Put yourself in Danish or Portuguese or Italian shoes: what's in it for you? Why would you join a mission no-one thinks is winnable? (Maybe a new strategy can change that, but that too is something that remains to be seen.) It isn't simply Iraq; it's the growing perception that many people feel they have little to know idea why, nearly seven years later, we're still in Afghanistan. What are we actually doing there? What can we actually realistically hope to achieve?....
It would be lovely to think that Obama can bring a new period of transatlantic harmony. But it just isn't the case that American interests are necessarily the same as European interests. The Security Card trumped everything during the Cold War but these are changed times. And there were, in any case, always more differences than seemed the case then too, these days they're much clearer to see. A new President may find it difficult to change that. Or, to put it another way, he may need to give something up himself to advance American interests in other areas.
Alex is right to point out the centrality of common security interests to transatlantic security cooperation. I don't think the divergence of interests is as great as he thinks, however, in part because Obama's strategy allows his to display credible commitments that Bush could not. On Afghanistan, for example, the problem the Bush administration always had with getting more allied support was the perception among many allies that the U.S. wanted NATO help in that theatre so they could focus on Iraq.
If Obama pursues his graduated withdrawal strategy and expanded soft power capabilities, however, he's going to be able to ask for European help while simultaneously augmenting U.S. forces and resources in the Afghan theater. States are much more willing to cooperate when they sense a serious commitment by the lead actor.
Contra Alex, I think a lot of European foreign policy elites do see the security and foreign policy benefits of doubling down in Afghanistan -- if anything, events in Mumbai merely reinforce that belief. Their concern has always been with the lack of U.S. focus and resources in the region. By committing greater resources -- which has been Obama's message for some time now -- I think he can square the circle with the Europeans.
[Of course, note that this is all highly dependent on the stability of Iraq. Either Iraq maintains its current level of stability, or Obama must be willing to reallocate troops away from Iraq despite a worsening security situation there.]
I tried to make some of these points last night in a discussion of this topic on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, but I was blinded by Jeff Kopstein's hearty California glow. Nevertheless, true groupies can watch it below:
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