MIGHT George Bush yet succeed where Europe's leaders have not,
in forging a common foreign policy for the European Union?
Having settled little of their own business at their Stockholm
summit (see article), over dinner the EU 15 decided to step in
where America still hesitates to tread: their president for this
half-year, Sweden's prime minister, Goran Persson, together with
the Union's two top foreign-policy officials, Javier Solana and
Chris Patten, will meet North Korea's Kim Jong Il sometime in
May. The aim, said Mr Persson, is “to express support for the
[peace] process started by the South Korean president, Kim Dae
Jung.” The point, said Sweden's foreign minister, Anna Lindh, is
that Europeans are getting twitchy at Mr Bush's more “hardline”
approach towards North Korea. Europe, she added, “must step in.”
Such twitchiness is not confined to Mr Bush's Korea policy.
Europeans expected the smack of firmer leadership from the new
administration in Washington, but have been taken aback that so
far it seems