Mr President, since 11 September, we have all said that Europe and the USA must stand shoulder to shoulder because we share common values. We must support our ally in its time of need in the same way as America came to Europe's aid twice in the darkest hours of the last century. Yet, this support need not be uncritical. True friends and allies must talk to each other and, more importantly, listen to each other. Sadly, as the Commissioner has said, there have been too many examples recently of poor communication and the turning of deaf ears in transatlantic relations. As the Commissioner demonstrated admirably to Mr Elles, candour is sometimes an obligation of friendship. We must say candidly that on some issues Europe believes the US has got it wrong. Claims that the International Criminal Court would have untrammelled power to prosecute members of the US military are simply not true. To disown the body will not prevent it from going ahead, the US will simply lose all influence over the way the rules develop. American arguments at the UN summit on children against safeguards – because they would prevent judicial execution of minors in Texas – offend the European concept of justice, just as US treatment of Taliban prisoners in the Shibarghan camp in northern Afghanistan seems to us to violate the Geneva Convention. Staying out of the Kyoto agreement on climate change means that the US is free-riding on the efforts of others to tackle global warming. How can we expect the developing world to make its industries environmentally sustainable when the world's leading economy passes the buck so shamelessly? On steel tariffs also, US policy is misguided. Rather than re-structure its steel industry, the US risks losing the moral high ground in the global campaign for free trade. However, the breakdown in communication across the Atlantic is due not only to errors of judgment on the US side. It does not help that the European Union is at sixes and sevens. Mr Prodi and Mr Aznar looked distinctly uncomfortable with each other at the summit. The failure of Member States to back the Commission in its response to the steel tariffs dispute undermines the credibility of the Union and weakens our negotiating hand. The Union's failure to speak with one voice, from Iraq to India, makes it mighty difficult for the US to know where we stand. For the Union to have a credible foreign policy we need a common security policy. It is no use establishing a 60 000 strong rapid reaction force if we cannot get it up and running in practice or reach agreement on a common arms procurement policy. In other areas too, from policing on the ground to a single European sky, we will not be taken seriously by the Americans until we get our own act together. Finally, the Union could take a leaf out of the US book in its policy towards China over Taiwan. It is disgraceful that Taiwan, a fully-fledged democracy since 1987, is made a pariah by EU governments which claim to represent democratic values. It is high time that Member States stood together behind the EU flag to open normal relations with Taiwan and take a stand at the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva against the PRC's human rights abuses. In conclusion, the European Union would be better placed to engage in a real dialogue of equals with the US, if we displayed more unity and demonstrated more backbone. Liberal Democrats look to the Convention on the future of Europe to deliver a federal European Union with a real common foreign and security policy, so that Europe can use active diplomacy to strive for a new approach to global development and convince our American friends to follow.

Political group: ELDR