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THE LISBON TREATY: IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION

AND THE UNITED STATES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 15, 2009

Serial No. 111–69

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts, Chairman 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

VACANT 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

TED POE, Texas 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CLIFF STAMMERMAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

BRIAN FORNI, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

RICHARD MEREU, Republican Professional Staff Member 

CELIA RICHA, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European 

and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State .............................................. 10

Karen Donfried, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, German Marshall Fund 

of the United States ............................................................................................. 31

Ms. Sally McNamara, Senior Policy Analyst, European Affairs, Margaret 

Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation ................................. 42

Daniel Hamilton, Ph.D., Richard von Weizsa ̈ cker Professor and Director of 

Center for Transatlantic Relations, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced 

International Studies, Johns Hopkins University ............................................. 50

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Philip H. Gordon: Prepared statement ........................................ 13

Karen Donfried, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ......................................................... 35

Ms. Sally McNamara: Prepared statement ........................................................... 44

Daniel Hamilton, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 55

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 84

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 85

(1)

THE LISBON TREATY: IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED STATES 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William D. Delahunt 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. This hearing will come to order. It has been my 

customary practice when I would chair the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight to make it 

rather informal in the sense of rules. In fact my ranking member, 

another gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, described it 

as the committee without rules, and it would be my intention to 

continue to have that informality and flexibility in terms of the 5-

minute rule, the 10-minute rule, but we would ask all of our witnesses to be circumspect in terms of the amount of time that they 

use. But I prefer that people feel comfortable, take their time, and 

it also applies to members. We generally have a conversation, 

members are allowed to pursue a line of questioning without being 

concerned about the gavel. 

But in any event, let me first extend I guess my welcome, or it 

should be his welcome to me, to my other friend from California, 

the ranking member, Mr. Gallegly, with whom I have served some 

14 years on the House Judiciary Committee. We have an excellent 

working relationship. We agree on some things on the Judiciary 

Committee, like what, what is it, Elton? But I presume on this subcommittee there will be much agreement with occasional disagreements, but they will be done in such ways as I know our personal 

relationship has always been one of mutual respect and good camaraderie. 

So it is with a deep sense of responsibility that I am conducting 

my first hearing as chair of the Subcommittee on Europe. As I 

agree with the observation of Secretary Clinton, who noted that 

Europe is our essential partner, and that the subject of today’s 

hearing, the Lisbon Treaty, would appear to signal a substantial 

change in the infrastructure of the European Union, and thus it behooves us to be especially aware for the potential implications for 

that partnership as there is no other relationship closer or more 

significant for the United States and for that matter Europe. 

2

The economic data is empirical proof of that premise. According 

to the delegation of the EU to the United States, transatlantic 

flows of trade and investment amount to far in excess of $1 billion 

a day, and together our global trade accounts represent 40 percent 

of world trade and 50 percent of global GDP. Furthermore, it is my 

own belief that this partnership is a predicate for political and economic stability and the expansion of democratic values globally. 

Now the evolution of a European entity has been dramatic in a historical context since Robert Schuman’s famous speech back in 1951 

proposing that France and Germany pool their coal and steel resources into a new organization that other European nation states 

could join. 

Now I won’t take the time to review the history that led to the 

Lisbon Treaty, but I believe that as the evolution and growth of the 

EU proceeded over time, our partnership with the EU became ever 

more critical and will clearly continue to do so. As President 

Obama recently stated in response to the final approval of the 

Treaty, a strengthened and renewed EU will be an even better 

transatlantic partner with the United States. 

Some experts suggest that the passage of the Lisbon Treaty will 

have positive implications for the United States, Europe, EU relations, in part due to the creation of new posts such as the European Council President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs, along with an increased role for the European Parliament, 

dear to the heart of many Members of the United States Congress, 

I might note. That combined with more authority in specific policy 

areas, these changes would provide the EU with a more coherent 

voice, and given our shared vision for democracy, human rights and 

global security, these new allocations of power within the EU system could offer the U.S. a more active and assertive overseas partner in addressing our shared challenges and in promoting our common causes. 

While some cast the premise that deeper integrations and enlargement of the EU are threats to America’s leverage over individual member states, it is my own conviction that the interest of 

having a stable and dependable multilateral partner in Europe outweighs the short term interests of any particular bilateral relationship. Now, why hold a hearing on the implications of the Lisbon 

Treaty at this admittedly premature juncture? Much ambiguity exists as to the Treaty’s implementation within the EU even among 

its own member states, much less in working relations with other 

nations. 

It is indeed accurate to say, as with all reform, that only trial 

and practice will reveal a measure’s true character and consequence. But as we have seen all too often, in the cases of wars 

on terror and wars on drugs, financial regulation, and global warming, it is our lack of foresight and thoughtful consideration to anticipate and prepare for new challenges and opportunities that diminishes our ability to promote and preserve the interests and well 

being of our own citizens. It was our sixth President of the United 

States, John Quincy Adams, who warned, ‘‘Idleness is sweet and its 

consequences are cruel.’’

For those of you who attend these subcommittee hearings in the 

future, be prepared for constant references to John Quincy Adams. 

3

He was not only the first Ambassador to Russia, but he is my immediate political predecessor, in other words I am his direct political descendant since he and I are the only native sons of Quincy, 

Massachusetts, to serve in the United States Congress. He is therefore a very quotable source for me. I only hope that I don’t end like 

John Quincy Adams, whom some of you might know was President 

and then came back to the House of Representatives and happened 

to die in the chamber of the House of Representatives. But he was 

obviously a large figure in American history. 

So proactive inquiry and thoughtful consideration facing the EUAmerican relationship will not only inform us what may occur, but 

better prepare us for whatever options may be available as we 

move forward. So it is with this purpose that we hold today’s hearing. Understanding the meaningful reforms encompassed in the 

Lisbon Treaty will assist our Government in making the most of 

the essential relationship. President Obama has aptly stated that 

in America there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in 

the world. I concur with that. With this in mind, and by holding 

this hearing here today, we are taking Europe and the EU and the 

individual member states seriously. So with that I will conclude 

and yield to the ranking member, Mr. Gallegly, for any comments 

he wishes to make. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you for holding this hearing on the Lisbon Treaty and its effect on 

the U.S.-EU relationships. Dana is always coming through, he may 

be a little more tolerant of the no rules or the diminished structured rules, but I am sure we are going to work well together, it 

has been an honor to serve with you on the Judiciary for all these 

many years, and while as you mentioned we have had some disagreements as it relates to issues philosophically and maybe even 

politically on occasion, but I don’t think we have ever been disagreeable on any issue we have ever dealt with, and as the former 

chairman of this committee for a couple terms when Rob Wexler 

was my ranking member, and then something happened somewhere along one of the political cycles that changed all that, I did 

have the honor to work with Rob as the chairman and as his ranking member, and I enjoyed every minute of it as I look forward to 

working with you, Mr. Chairman. 

As we all know, on December the 1st, following ratification by all 

27 member states in the European Union, the Lisbon Treaty went 

into force. In the end, the goal of the Lisbon Treaty is to streamline 

decision making in the EU and make it more active and united 

actor in international affairs. I don’t have a strong view on whether 

the Lisbon Treaty will be beneficial to the people of Europe, this 

is the decision for the nations of the EU and their citizens to ultimately make. They are the best judge on the best way to organize 

their own political and economic affairs. 

However, I will be monitoring the implementation of the Treaty 

to determine its effect on the United States relationship with the 

sovereign countries in Europe. For example, will the ratification of 

the Lisbon Treaty in any way impede our close bilateral military 

and intelligence relationships that we maintain with certain European countries? Or will the new Treaty make it more difficult for 

4

the countries of Europe to cooperate with us, particularly in places 

like Afghanistan. 

Finally, I was very interested to read Ms. McNamara’s statement 

in which she cites the provision in the Lisbon Treaty that requires 

EU countries to consult the other members before undertaking 

international action and to ensure that such actions are consistent 

with the EU policy. I find this provision to be potentially troublesome. Judging by its recent history, one can only imagine what the 

EU reaction would be to the actions taken by some of our close allies such as Britain on a variation of national security issues. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing today, I 

welcome and look forward to hearing the testimony of all our witnesses and certainly welcome Assistant Secretary Gordon. And I 

would yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Gallegly. And let me note the 

presence of the chairman emeritus way down at the end, Mr. 

Wexler. I am sure he is here to monitor my performance, I am sure 

shortly after the conclusion of this particular hearing I will be receiving a report card from Professor Wexler. But let me yield to 

him to see whether he has any comments that he wishes to make. 

With that, the gentleman from Florida, my friend Bob Wexler. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, just one. Understanding that Secretary 

Gordon is quite a draw, I had the privilege of chairing this committee for 3 years and none of you guys ever showed up, and now 

it is a full boat. So what does that have to say? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think it says a lot, Bob, actually. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you very much, please proceed. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. Do any other members wish to make 

an opening statement? The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations, I am 

sure that we are going to be able to work on many issues together, 

some not so closely as others, but you know that I appreciate and 

I respect your friendship. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s hearing. On December 1st the Lisbon Treaty went into effect. 

The Treaty was designed to improve the procedures of the European Union in hopes of progressing the Union’s work in Europe 

and around the globe. I applaud the EU members for their achievement in passing this substantial reform after years of negotiations. 

However, despite the lengthy deliberation it remains to be seen 

how the Lisbon Treaty will affect the work of the European Union 

in practice and how this reform may impact U.S. relations with the 

EU and its members. Also, with this long process completed, I am 

eager to see where the new European Union will focus its energies 

next. I look forward to hearing from today’s expert witness and 

welcome you to the hearing. And I would like to end by saying I 

enjoyed very much working with former Chairman Wexler on this 

committee for the years that he was here. Thank you very much. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Sires. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. McMahon. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I too want to 

congratulate you on your first hearing as the chairman of the Europe Subcommittee. Surely anyone who arises or sends up to this 

chair has big shoes to fill, but perhaps no more so in the history 

of this committee as now as you fill the shoes of Congressman 

5

Wexler. But we all know that you are up to it, and we look forward 

to your leadership as we all know you are a passionate leader on 

the issues that exist between our country and Europe and also how 

important that partnership and friendship is and that you are a 

strong advocate for strengthening that bond. And as a new member 

of course I wish you the best in this influential subcommittee and 

look forward to working with you. 

And again thank you for calling this timely hearing on the Lisbon Treaty. Secretary Gordon, thank you for being here today. The 

Lisbon Treaty’s ratification and its subsequent employment has left 

the United States with as many exciting prospects of increased cooperation as with questions on the future of U.S.-EU relations. Personally, I would encourage and invite our counterparts in the European Parliament to be more active on the Hill and to address these 

concerns as we will seek to interact with them as well. 

Mr. Chairman and Secretary Gordon, I am actually particularly 

concerned over noted trends toward protectionism in the European 

Union. Aside from hampering U.S. industry in the EU and hurting 

the EU economy, many fear that new rules, particularly the alternate fund managers directive, could lead to U.S. retaliation in the 

sort of a damaging trade dispute in the area of financial services. 

Furthermore, I have questions about the EU’s new internal market 

chief Michael Barnier and his views on this legislation. We are encouraged by the work of the Transatlantic Economic Council to promote increased dialogue between legislators on this matter, Mr. 

Gordon, and we look forward to your testimony and your comments 

on these very important issues and as always are grateful for your 

appearance here. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And next let me go to the gentlelady from Nevada who chairs the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue which just 

met recently with our European counterparts in New York and I 

understand it was a very robust and very productive session. Ms. 

Berkley. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations. I 

am looking forward to working with you on these issues as well as 

so many others. And of course my dear, dear friend Bob Wexler, 

if I praise him any more he is going to get a very swelled head, 

but he knows how much I will miss him and wish him well in his 

new endeavors. As the chairman said, I chair the Transatlantic 

Legislators Dialogue. For those that don’t know what that is, it is 

an ongoing discussion between Members of the United States Congress and our European Union Parliament counterparts. 

We just attended our 67th meeting, it has been going on for well 

over 30 years with and without me. I have been chair for the last 

few years, and I can honestly say it has been an extraordinary experience for me. We meet twice a year, once in the United States, 

and we just concluded our 67th meeting in New York City, and 

once in Europe depending on who had the presidency of the EU. 

Our dialogue encompasses a number of issues starting many years 

ago just on foreign policy, and of course we talk about the Balkans 

and Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, our relationship with Russia, the Middle East. 

But we have started to expand the scope of our discussions and 

we are now talking about the collective economies, especially in 

6

light of the financial meltdown that continues to plague all of us, 

trade issues, the TEC, that has become a large part of what we 

talk about. So I can tell you without fear of contradiction that at 

this latest meeting which took place last weekend in New York, the 

euphoria felt by the members of the European Union Parliament 

that were in attendance was palpable, and they are most excited 

to take this new Treaty and translate it into positive action not 

only among EU members and have a stronger, more transparent, 

and a better EU, but vis-a`-vis their relationship with the United 

States and a strengthening of the transatlantic coalition. 

I am curious in you remarks and perhaps during Q&A, the Europeans have made a number of proposals to the American side of 

the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue, everything from as simple 

as exchanging interns during the summer, which I think would be 

a very good thing, to strengthening our involvement in the TEC, 

additional meetings throughout the year rather than the two, we 

can certainly be doing video conferencing on specific issues, and 

tailoring our meetings so that maybe since we have now a good 

contingent of both Europeans, 27, and we had 14 Congresspeople 

at the last TLD meeting, so it is a good number of people and many 

have areas of expertise that we would like to hone in on. 

But one of the most intriguing suggestions by the EU members 

is that they are setting up an office, a TLD office, here in the 

United States starting on January, right after the new year, that 

will interact with Members of Congress, so that legislation that we 

are considering they will get a handle on and its impact on the EU 

prior to enactment. They have asked that the United States Congress do the same, and I am curious as to what your opinion is. 

It is easy enough to do, we could pattern it after Helsinki and their 

arrangement, and so we have lots of possibilities, and I would be 

curious to hear, Mr. Gordon, what you think about that and where 

you see the TLD’s role in this enhanced EU relationship through 

the Lisbon Treaty. And I thank you very much for your kind attention. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank the gentlelady. And I would also echo, 

you know, the suggestion in terms of an American office. In fact 

the gentlelady I am sure is unaware but there was a former Member from Minnesota by the name of Gil Goodnik whom, along with 

myself, chaired the Congressional study group on Germany, and 

working with the then Chair Henry Hyde of the full committee 

raised that potential because it became clear to us that Members 

of Congress to a very large degree were unfamiliar with the basic 

structure of the EU and there needed to be a presence given the 

significance of Congress as an institution in American foreign policy. So I look forward to working with you on this. 

Ms. BERKLEY. It seemed, if I could, Mr. Chairman, there was discussion that the United States Congress is the weak link in our 

foreign policy discussions and involvement with the European 

Union, and I would rather not be considered the weak link in anything. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well I can assure you, you personally are not 

considered a weak link in anything. But with that, let me determine whether the gentleman from Georgia wishes to make an 

opening statement? 

7

Mr. SCOTT. Yes I would, Mr. Chairman, and let me start off by 

congratulating you on your new assignment. And I would like to 

add, for those of you who may not know, the chairman is the only 

Member of Congress with the distinctful photograph of him taken 

in Moscow downtown with the statue of John Quincy Adams. Many 

people did not know that John Quincy Adams has a statue of him 

in downtown Moscow, and the chairman was there and I was very 

proud. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. My memory, Mr. Scott, is that you were the photographer. 

Mr. SCOTT. Yes I was. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I have not received the invoice yet, but I appreciate the photo. 

Mr. SCOTT. It was a great, great photo, and it was a great honor 

for me to take it, and I enjoyed that. And to you, Mr. Wexler, we 

really appreciate, I enjoyed serving on this subcommittee with you, 

and I wish you great success in your future endeavors. This is indeed a very timely hearing with the EU, some very perplexing 

questions and issues certainly present themselves. It is going to be 

very interesting to see how these reforms from the Lisbon Treaty 

impact on multiple layers. 

One, there are so many, but one that strikes out is what areas 

of conflict and duplication do we have now with the EU and 

NATO? Particularly in the new reform of mutual assistance, where 

one member enters into any kind of armed conflict the other members come to their aid, and that of course is the same of I think 

it is a chapter or amendment 5 within the NATO agreements as 

well. So I think that that is an area that certainly raises some 

questions. 

The other is, will the reforms of Lisbon Treaty in terms of the 

common defense that this reform has put forward strengthen a 

more aggressive foreign policy, a more protective one, and particularly as it relates to terrorism and what is going on in the Middle 

East? And particularly Afghanistan and Pakistan, will they offer a 

similar line of support as NATO? And then the overlapping of 

NATO and the EU, and one is 23 countries I believe, the other is 

27, but they are many of the same countries, so that is a very area. 

And will there be a more aggressive approach to Russia particularly in the area of energy security and the monopoly that Russia 

has in that region in supplying nearly 40 percent of its natural gas 

and Russia’s tendency to use that monopoly as a political tool, will 

they be more aggressive in how they respond to that? And I think 

that in terms of their efforts to move forward in a more responsive 

way with Iran on the sanctions, we have not had that. 

So I am really looking forward to this, I think that the Lisbon 

Treaty is very positive, and I think that we really need to examine 

it very thoroughly here, hopefully we can accomplish through our 

examination a sense of urgency to move the European Union to be 

more forceful, and it is good to see the underlying agreements within this Treaty appear to be moving the European Union in a more 

aggressive way in terms of a more robust defense, security, and foreign policy. And I look forward to hearing you and certainly asking 

some questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

8

And before I go to my colleague on the Republican side, let me 

conclude and inquire from the vice chair, I understand, of this subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Costa, whether he 

wishes to make a statement. 

Mr. COSTA. Yes, very quickly. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations to you and your good work and to our 

past chairman as he seeks greener pastures. My colleagues who 

have commented about this being a very timely hearing I think are 

quite correct, and, Secretary Gordon, we are looking forward to 

your testimony as it relates to what portends with the Lisbon Treaty. As the vice chair of the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue, I 

want to associate myself with the comments that the chair just 

made, it is I think a robust discussion that is taking place. As the 

European Parliament continues to participate under the Lisbon 

Treaty, we will continue to see exchanges. 

I think most of us are aware that the largest trading partner 

that the United States has is with Europe, and the dynamic nature 

of the relationship that has a tremendous history is important as 

we look forward. I also want to make comments as the chair of the 

Transatlantic Partners Network, and we work in collaboration, and 

what is less known is as a member of the smaller Portuguese caucus, Mr. Chairman, the Lisbon Treaty is so named because during 

the tenure of the Presidency of Portugal the Lisbon Treaty was finally concluded, and although it took several years to ratify we are 

honored to have the Ambassador from Portugal is here in the audience today, Ambassador Joao de Vallera, who has taken a great interest as all the members, 27 nation states of Europe, in successfully seeing the Treaty enacted. 

What this portends as to the Lisbon Treaty, stronger more coherent voice with the European Union is one of the goals, more 

streamlined decision making in their process, and increased transparency and democratic accountability. As the European network 

has expanded, we can only think 20 years ago the euro really had 

not developed, and today of course the euro is a very robust, strong 

currency that has created tremendous economic vitality not just in 

Europe but around the world. One can only imagine what 20 years 

from now the new European Union with the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, or as we would say in Portuguese, Lisboa Treaty, we 

can hope whether or not it ultimately leads to some formation of 

a United States of Europe remains to be seen. 

We do know that when our country was formed and we achieved 

our independence we had the Articles of Confederation that were 

fairly ineffective and which ultimately led to the development of 

our Federal form of government and our Constitution. This is a 

very exciting time period, and the Lisbon Treaty, or as we would 

say Lisboa, is a work in progress. We look forward to the testimony 

that the secretary will provide us during this transition that is currently existing, and would like to get your insights as to what we 

might expect. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Costa. Let me echo your kudos 

for the Ambassador from Portugal and for serving as a venue as 

well as a force in terms of the conclusion of this Treaty that we 

are discussing here today. 

9

And now let me, as I look to my right one more time, I am going 

to have to go to one of the best ranking members anywhere in the 

Congress, a lot of people were I think surprised by our ability to 

work on some extremely difficult issues together when I chaired 

the Oversight Committee, but I think we accomplished much more 

than was ever anticipated, and it was terrific working with the 

gentleman, my friend from California, Dana Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I am here to wish you good 

luck in your new endeavor, but I do want to remind you that even 

today, if you will notice, I am not on your right, I am on your left. 

And I know that is very difficult to discern when you are talking 

about your good friend, Dana. About the remarks that were just 

made in terms of our European friends and the euro et cetera, I 

remember when in the 1990s when we used our currency stabilization fund to save the euro. The euro was going down, I was very 

upset that President Clinton, you know, saw it in his power, which 

was not granted him by Congress, to stabilize the euro with our 

funds when the fund that he was using was for the United States 

dollar. 

But we did that and we saved the euro, and I think that it was 

certainly an act of good will on the part of the people of the United 

States, because there wouldn’t even be a euro now. I am very anxious to find out whether or not our European friends are being reciprocal in that, whether or not now that the dollar is under attack, 

what are they doing to help us strengthen the dollar, or are they 

instead taking advantage of a situation and kicking a friend while 

he is down? 

Mr. Chairman, again congratulations for assuming this new 

chairmanship. Today we have heard congratulations and best wishes to Representative Wexler for the job that he has done, a great 

job that he has done, for the many accomplishments that he has 

had. We have also heard some very hopeful words about the Lisbon 

Treaty and the sense of optimism that that might be something 

that will play a positive role in the future. Let me fully identify 

myself with the former words of congratulations and not the latter 

words of hopeful, perhaps irrational optimism. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

And last but not least certainly, a senior statesman in the U.S. 

Congress, the gentleman from Tennessee, the retiring John Tanner. 

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, I may add my good wishes to you 

in your new endeavor and thank Mr. Wexler for his past leadership. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. As you know, I have 

been very active in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Mr. Scott 

touched on some of the matters that we just recently discussed at 

our fall plenary meeting in Scotland. I have been going to NATO 

PA since General Joulwan was SACEUR. General Joulwan, General Clark, General Jones, General Ralston, General Craddock, and 

I just met with Admiral Stavridus 3 weeks ago. All of them have 

I guess in one way or another bemoaned the fact that the coordination between NATO and the EU, and with respect to Afghanistan 

right at the moment, is lacking. 

10

And I would be very interested in your insight and your opinions 

as to how the Lisbon Treaty, if it will, will help that situation, because there are so many things that the EU could do that NATO 

is not the best vehicle in terms of some of the civilian projects, 

PRTs and so on. The other question I would have, or observation, 

is the scarcity of resources. Many of the EU members are also 

NATO members, and the last thing we need is duplicity in a resource scarce world with regard to that, and I would be very much 

interested in your insight as to that. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you 

for holding this hearing, it is very, very timely. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well thank you, Mr. Tanner, and I know that I 

speak for everyone when I say thank you for your long and significant service to issues such as NATO and our national security and 

our relationship particularly with Europe. Without any further ado, 

thank you for your patience, Assistant Secretary Gordon, it is great 

to have you here. I will be brief in your introduction. The assistant 

secretary was nominated as assistant secretary in March of this 

year and took the oath on May 15th. 

From 2000 to 2009 he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington where he focused on a wide range of Europe 

and United States foreign policy issues. He was Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton 

administration where he played a key role in developing and coordinating NATO policy in the run up to the Alliance’s 50th anniversary summit in Washington. He has an extensive background 

academically as well as service to his country. So thank you, Mr. 

Assistant Secretary, and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PHILIP H. GORDON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN 

AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gallegly, and 

thanks to all of you. I would also like to begin by congratulating 

you, Mr. Chairman, on taking over this committee. As you all know 

I have had extensive engagement with this committee over the 

years, and I will look forward to continuing that under your leadership. And I too would like to acknowledge and thank your predecessor, Mr. Wexler, we all benefitted from his leadership of this 

committee over the years and note he will stay engaged on all of 

these issues. 

I also want to thank you for inviting me to testify on this subject 

at this time, because as many of you have pointed out, this really 

is a potentially important development that the United States 

should be paying close attention to as we think about our own interests. I have submitted more detailed testimony for the record, so 

if it is all right with you and abiding by your encouragement to be 

brief, I will just make a short opening statement. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Please. 

Mr. GORDON. The United States and the European Union form 

a community of shared values and a partnership of shared interests. Our 800 million democratically governed citizens are bound 

together by enduring links of culture and commerce, by our shared 

history, and by our common hopes for the future. The European 

Union is one of our most crucial partners in addressing regional 

11

and global challenges around the world. Our shared priorities cover 

all the major United States foreign policy concerns, including stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan, contending with the Iranian nuclear program, addressing global climate change, pursuing comprehensive peace in the Middle East, managing our responses to 

the global financial crisis, enhancing energy security, and promoting the spread of democratic and market reforms to every corner of Europe. 

The United States-Europe economic relationship is one of the 

central drivers of the world economy, our links are not just those 

of shared values, trade, and political traditions, but also consist of 

the millions of our citizens who travel each year to our countries 

to work, study, or simply visit. In view of the many ties that bind 

the United States and Europe together, the Obama administration 

welcomed very much the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 

December 1st. We believe that this Treaty marks a milestone for 

Europe and its role in the world. 

It creates several new institutions, including the permanent 

presidency of the European Council, a new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and a new European 

External Action Service. There will also be an enhanced role for the 

European Parliament. These new and strengthened institutions 

will further promote the evolution of the European Union toward 

a more consistent, coherent, and effective foreign policy. We believe 

that a strong and cohesive Europe is very much in the United 

States national interest, and we look forward to the development 

of these institutions and to engaging with their new leaders, incoming President Herman Van Rompuy and the new High Representative Catherine Ashton, as well as with President Barroso of the European Commission and the leaders of the European Parliament. 

We are hopeful that a permanent presidency of the Council will 

allow for the development of a long term consultative relationship 

at the head of state and government level. The new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will combing responsibility for EU foreign policy coordination with a greater capacity to make strategic use of the EU’s substantial foreign assistance 

budget, and will function as the permanent chair of the Foreign Affairs Council, the monthly meeting of EU foreign ministers. 

Secretary Clinton met with Catherine Ashton during her December 4 visit to Brussels for the NATO ministerial, and they have 

talked about an early visit by High Representative Ashton to 

Washington. High Representative Ashton will be supported by a 

new External Action Service that will ultimately function as a sort 

of diplomatic service for the EU and offer counterparts to U.S. officials. The Lisbon Treaty brings other noteworthy institutional 

changes. The European Parliament has gained increased powers 

over issues of justice and home affairs, the EU budget, agricultural 

policy, and trade agreements. 

We hope that ties and contacts between Members of Congress 

and EU legislators will continue to strengthen as the European 

Parliament’s authority broadens. I think this reinforces a point 

made by many of you about the need for that, which we certainly 

support. A number of members of this committee, as Representative Berkley pointed out, met on December 4 to 6 with their EuroVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:57 Mar 22, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\EU\121509\54133 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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pean counterparts in New York under the Transatlantic Legislators 

Dialogue in what we understand were some of the most robust consultations so far between our legislators, and that can only be a 

good thing, and I hope in the question and answer period to be able 

to elaborate on this, but certainly given that this is a democratic 

space on both sides of the Atlantic we need to be connecting with 

the legislators and citizens on these foreign policy issues. 

The EU also continues to take steps toward fulfilling the European vision of the EU that contributes as much to diplomacy and 

defense as it does to trade and economics. Under Lisbon, the EU’s 

European Security and Defense Policy, ESDP, is renamed the Common Security and Defense Policy, CSDP. The Treaty expands the 

scope of the EU in terms of crisis management deployments, peacemaking, supporting third countries in combating terrorism in their 

territories, and defense coordination. It is the policy of this administration to support a strengthened European defense capacity. 

We believe that CSDP can make an important contribution to 

international security and stability. We also believe that NATO 

and the EU, with 21 common members, can complement each other 

and should work closely together on their shared priorities. In our 

view, there is more than enough work to around, so it also makes 

sense, and again this addresses a point that several of you have 

made, it also makes sense for the two organizations to coordinate 

their efforts to make the most efficient use of scarce resources by 

minimizing duplications of capabilities, infrastructure, and operations. 

And let me conclude with what I think is the essential point behind our thinking. It is clear to all of us that the United States 

faces a daunting array of global challenges that no single country 

can handle on its own. For a variety of critical issues from climate 

change to the Doha Round of trade talks, the Balkans, Iran, I could 

name many others, solutions will require working in close concert 

with our European partners. We believe that the Lisbon Treaty 

represents an important effort by our EU partners to streamline 

their policy making process. 

We understand that, as with all efforts to reform complex institutions, and the EU is certainly one, this is a work in progress and 

it may take time for the new institutions to demonstrate their impact. Nevertheless, we hope that changes brought by Lisbon will 

make the EU a stronger partner for the United States and increase 

the role of Europe on the world stage. We want the EU to be that 

stronger partner and we certainly intend to do our part to engage 

closely with the new institutions. Ultimately, their effectiveness 

will be determined by the will of the EU member states to invest 

in them. Let me thank you again, Mr. Chairman, all the members 

of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you on this 

important subject, and I look forward to your questions and our 

discussion. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gordon follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Well thank you, Mr. Assistant Secretary, and as 

I was listening to your testimony, I found it thought provoking in 

the sense of future hearings. I have always contemplated the concept of a transatlantic free trade zone as you reference our commercial trade relationship, and have always been curious as to why it 

has not had more attention and more focus. I also, as I indicated 

earlier, serve on the Judiciary Committee, where both Mr. Gallegly 

and I have served on the Immigration Subcommittee, which implicates the Visa waiver program. And I am aware of the fact that 

there are some countries in Eastern Europe that have an interest 

in participating in that program and I think that ought to be a subject of a hearing. 

And I also concur with your statement about the need for coordination between the EU and NATO and a more efficient relationship there. But I am just going to ask one question, because if 

needs be I can always ask at the end before we conclude your testimony. But I have always been surprised, not just by the European 

ignorance of the role and the function of Congress in our Federal 

system, in our American democracy, but clearly the opposite is also 

true. 

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, to the American, the 

concept of the EU, you know, represents something at first blush 

as very simple, but it becomes much more arcane when the details 

are reviewed. There is a commission, there is a council, there is a 

Parliament and it is in Brussels, and what is it doing in Brussels? 

With all due respect to Brussels. The point is that this lack of understanding I think carries with it great risk. I think there are perceptions on the part of Members of Congress that sometimes there 

is animosity when in fact there is none, and are minimal disagreements as opposed to animosity. And I think it is very, very important to maintain a consistent, constant dialogue. 

And I respect the work that my colleagues under the leadership 

of the Congresswoman from Nevada have done, but I don’t think 

we can afford at this point, with a new entity post-Lisbon that will 

be more efficient hopefully in terms of its decision making, not to 

have a significant presence in Brussels where there are consistent, 

constant, open lines of communication as opposed to an ad hoc series of meetings. And I intend to discuss this with Ms. Berkley, but 

I just put out on the table, why not a Congressional office? Obviously it would be bipartisan in nature, but having a presence with 

a well qualified staff, given the seriousness of the issues that we 

all know face both Europe and the United States? 

Mr. GORDON. Well I can certainly say I share your perception 

that there is insufficient familiarity on both sides with the institutions of the other, including on the parliamentary side, that partly 

stems from very different practices. We certainly encourage when 

visitors come here to talk foreign policy, we do encourage them to 

come up to the Hill, and a number of these European countries, 

their parliaments don’t play the sort of role in foreign policy that 

ours do, and it is important for them to understand ours. 

In terms of the other direction, I would say this, one theoretical 

at least advantage of Lisbon is to be easier to understand. You 

know, we can forgive some Americans for not having mastered the 

intricacies of the council, the commission, the European Parliament 

20

and how that interrelates to the countries. And again in theory, 

this has to be proved in practice, but one of the ideas is to have 

a more identifiable interlocutor. And so now with a standing President of the Council and a standing High Representative, if you will 

foreign minister, it is a little bit clearer who is speaking for them 

on foreign policy. 

That said, and this comes to your point, Mr. Chairman, you 

know, let us not pretend that that will answer this question once 

and for all and that there will be just one phone number or individual, it will remain quite complicated and we are going to have 

to take advantage of your suggestion to understand it better including the European Parliament, which will play a greater role in foreign policy than it has. I don’t really have a specific view on your 

idea of a Congressional office in Brussels, maybe that is something 

that could be explored and similarly in the other direction, but I 

certainly agree with the notion that it is worth thinking about how 

we can get our parliaments to understand the other side better. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Assistant Secretary, it is my understanding 

that the European Parliament is or is about to open an office here 

in Washington, and without having a counterpart in Brussels I 

think we stand at a disadvantage. And like I said, I look forward 

to having this discussion with Congresswoman Berkley to see 

whether legislation (a) is necessary, or whether Congress as an 

independent institution can just simply appropriate the money and 

say that we are going to do it. But in any event I intend to make 

it a priority for myself and for this committee. 

With this I will yield to the ranking member Mr. Gallegly. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, can 

you give us your assessment as to how you see the impact that the 

Treaty will have on the U.S.-EU economic and trade relationship? 

Mr. GORDON. I think the Treaty will have limited impact on the 

economic and trade relationship. It has potentially significant impact on the general foreign policy relationship. Economics and 

trade is one area that was already significantly integrated in EU 

structures even prior to Lisbon. The Commissioner for Trade has 

for a long time been a powerful figure. EU member states a long 

time ago agreed to grant significant authority, for example when 

there is a trade negotiation it is the Trade Commissioner who is 

really empowered to act on behalf of all of the member states in 

a way that has not been true and remains untrue for foreign policy. 

So I don’t think that we should expect Lisbon to have a major impact on that. EU common institutions have already been quite empowered, and that will not change with the Lisbon Treaty. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. How do you see the impact that the enhanced 

role of the European Parliament might have on the U.S.-EU relationship? 

Mr. GORDON. That is more of an open question because the Lisbon Treaty does give the Parliament a greater role, including to 

some degree on foreign policy and including something that is a 

tradition in this country as holding hearings for and approving 

some of the appointments that will be part of the foreign policy apparatus. And the Parliament will also play a greater role in justice 

and home affairs, issues that at least indirectly affect our interests. 

21

But precisely how, so we can confidently say the European Parliament will play a greater role. What we can’t say, because it will 

depend in part on who gets elected to the European Parliament 

and how assertive they want to be and how resistant the people 

who fill the new posts want to be, is precisely what impact that 

will have, we don’t know what direction that they will want to go 

in, but it comes back to the chairman’s point about being better 

aware of developments taking place within the Parliament so that 

we know where they might be trying to push things. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. In another area, how do you see such things as 

a commitment of troops to wars and around the world or in areas 

of trade policy where a more coherent EU could pose some difficulties to the U.S. foreign policy objectives? 

Mr. GORDON. It could in theory pose difficulties for U.S. foreign 

policy objectives. But as I suggested in my testimony, we actually 

believe it is more likely to provide benefits in at least two ways. 

One is to have a more coherent European view of the situation and 

a more clear address for us to consult with on foreign policy challenges. And again through the new President of the Council and 

the High Representative we will be able to have this dialogue in 

a more direct manner with more direct representatives of the European Union. That is not going to be a cosmic jump from one situation to another. 

Member states of the EU, in particular the bigger, more active 

ones, will still play a predominant role and ultimately, and let us 

be clear about this, member states will still decide on issues such 

as whether to send forces abroad. When it comes to Afghanistan, 

not just because we are doing it in a NATO context, but anything 

like that, these questions will still be decided by countries and the 

institutions don’t provide for it and we shouldn’t expect the new 

President of the Council or the High Representative to take decisions like that. Nonetheless, they can play a coordinating role and 

a role in engaging with us. 

We also believe that by having a more coherent foreign policy 

and spokespeople for that foreign policy will help Europeans think 

strategically and raise their sights. By empowering people to think 

about these things and lead the EU we believe these institutions 

will give Europe a more prominent role on the world stage and 

therefore better balance the transatlantic relationship when it 

comes to thinking about these big foreign policy challenges. 

Ultimately, the reason we see more positives than negatives in 

this is that ultimately our foreign policy interests are very much 

in line with those of the European Union, whether it is stabilizing 

Afghanistan or responding to a crisis in Africa or keeping the peace 

in the Balkans, we really don’t see major differences with our 

democratic like minded European allies. And therefore the more 

they get engaged in these things, as I noted there is a theoretical 

prospect for a difference or a tension, but in most cases we are actually likely to see the European Union pursuing very much the 

same interests as us. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Chairman, just one last question because I 

see we have several members that want to jump in here, but 

maybe in short term you could give me what your assessment is 

22

and the effect that the Treaty might have on the bilateral relationships that we currently have with individual national capitals? 

Mr. GORDON. Those important bilateral relationships will continue to exist. Again, I don’t think anybody believes that we are 

seeing a dramatic shift away from particular bilateral relationships 

toward an exclusive or even dominant relationship with the new 

EU institutions. I think this is a gradual process, and the relationship with Brussels or the new President of the Council or High 

Representatives will in no way replace these historic relations that 

we have with a number of key European partners. I would like to 

believe that they will complement those bilateral relationships and 

reinforce them with another place to turn, but I think in the near 

term at least there is not going to be a significant change in how 

we deal with some of our key partners. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 

Ambassador. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Gallegly. 

Mr. Tanner. 

Mr. TANNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually asked for 

comment in my opening statement with regard to the interplay between NATO EU with respect to common defense matters, the 

EU’s role may be in more of the civilian side of the war effort. So 

thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Tanner. It is a longstanding issue, 

the relationship between the two organizations. And in the past the 

United States, including in the Clinton administration in which I 

served, was very concerned about potential for competition and duplication. And those concerns continue to exist, and I had mentioned that in my testimony, the last thing we need to do is duplicate institutions or structures or resources that are all too scarce. 

But we are confident that our interests are harmonized enough 

and the relations between the two organizations—which as pointed 

out significantly overlap, you know, 21 of the countries are in 

both—that we can avoid such unnecessary duplication and actually 

see benefits to ourselves in having the EU play a more prominent 

role. It is inevitable that the United States, when it comes to security challenges around the world, will think first about NATO. 

NATO is the one of these two organizations that we are in, and obviously we would like a seat at the table and we play a major role. 

It is also unlikely that if NATO is ready to act in a certain situation that our European allies won’t go along with that. When the 

United States is ready to play a leadership or a major role, it is 

likely that Europeans who are in both organizations will want that 

to be the case. There may, however, be other situations where we 

choose not to play a leadership or any role at all where we should 

welcome the fact that the EU is ready to do so. And there have 

been a number of conflict intervention situations over the past decade or so where that has been the case and where the EU has in 

fact gotten involved, and that is something that we should welcome. 

Rather than worrying that somehow the EU is going to go off 

and use military force in a place that we wouldn’t want it to, much, 

much more likely that they would go and help stabilize a situation 

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ment to doing. I mean currently in Bosnia where NATO and we 

initially deployed significant military forces, NATO is out and the 

European Union is running the peace mission there, there have 

been interventions in Africa, and likely to be others where we 

should welcome the fact that the European Union is getting more 

involved in stabilization exercises. 

Finally, let me just note, the two organizations have different 

mandates and capabilities. The EU is more comprehensive than 

NATO and can bring a long political element, civilian element, foreign assistance element, that NATO historically at least has not 

played a major role in. So on balance, while we are always going 

to be cautious and focused on issues of duplication, on balance we 

think it is a positive thing. 

Mr. TANNER. May I ask, have you given any thought to the inherent difference, I would say not conflict but difference, between 

the mutual assurance clause and Article 5 of the NATO treaty, 

may I ask for comment? 

Mr. GORDON. Sure. As noted by you and others, NATO has an 

Article 5, it is our bedrock guarantee, we are absolutely committed 

to it and any member of NATO operates under the premise that 

attack on one is an attack on all. The European Union has moved 

toward further commitments to its mutual security, and it has long 

been understood among EU states that they are committed to each 

other’s security but its mutual assistance clause is not as strong or 

binding as NATO’s and obviously doesn’t apply to us. We would 

naturally take very seriously any assault on the territorial integrity of a European member state, and all of the European member 

states would be committed to each other’s security, but that is different from an Article 5 commitment which we would only undertake if a country joined NATO and the senate agreed to that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Tanner. 

Mr. Sires? 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, Assistant Secretary, as I listen to question and comments, I get a sense that 

there is more layers now in the EU, and I get a sense that maybe 

working in concert may become a little more difficult, since every 

country still makes their own decision, let us say like Afghanistan, 

whether to send soldiers there or not or the amount. And there are 

8,000 new jobs that come with this, sounds like a jobs bill to me. 

But how does it play with such questions as Turkey and the issue 

of Cyprus, you know, you have a new President and you have a 

High Representative, who is going to make the final decisions on 

this? 

Mr. GORDON. You ask lots of good questions to which the answers are not yet entirely available. As I have stressed, this is 

going to be a process. And certainly with the enactment of Lisbon 

the EU has not gone from one system to a dramatically different 

system, these things are going to evolve over time. For example the 

jobs you are referring to, I think you are referring to this new European External Action Service, which will gradually be put together over the coming years and the Europeans have a lot of work 

to do in figuring out exactly how that is going to work. 

I think many of those jobs will not be new jobs but there will be 

a gradual process of diminishing some national representations and 

24

bolstering the EU’s own representation and tranforming it as well. 

At present the European Commission already has representations 

in just about every country in the world, and what will happen 

over time is that these Commission representations, which in the 

past were only dealing with issues that the Commission dealt with 

like trade or finance, will take on a broader role in actually representing the European Union, but this is a process that is just getting underway and I suspect it will be years before there are EU 

embassies in the United States and other countries. 

I don’t think it creates more layers, the idea is that it will lead 

to fewer layers ultimately, but it does not change the reality that 

on a question like sending force, I mean the current practice is only 

a member state is going to decide whether its soldiers get sent 

abroad and that is not going to change with this. What we hope 

will change is that the European Union has a more coherent and 

consistent foreign affairs representation. The rotating presidency, 

which was the way they represented themselves in the past to us 

and to the rest of the world, had the deficiency of being rotating. 

Every 6 months there was a different leadership chairing EU meetings and speaking for the EU abroad. 

So just again to put it in our terms, the U.S.-EU summit, at each 

one would be a different set of leaders, and it is hard to build continuity and talk about the same issues. Now, for at least 21⁄2 years, 

we will have the same interlocutor that we can talk to and an institutional memory, and there will be an opportunity to shape their 

views and work together on common challenges. So again, it is a 

process but we believe that over time this process will actually lead 

not to more layers but a more coherent partner. 

Mr. SIRES. And the question of Turkey and Cyprus, how does this 

play with the new treaty? 

Mr. GORDON. It won’t change the reality, I mean there are several Turkey Cyprus aspects to address. It won’t change the reality 

that to take in a new member state, such as Turkey wants to be, 

all current member states will have to agree. So, you know, the 

new President of the Council or High Representative will not have 

the power to take in a new member, that would have to be done 

by consensus, and so in that sense it doesn’t really change Turkey’s 

accession process. It does mean that any new applicant would have 

to agree to be part of this new foreign policy, and that is something 

that applicants will have to consider for themselves. 

The other relevant Turkey Cyprus aspect is an unfortunate one, 

which is that two countries’ ongoing dispute about NATO EU relations, and in response to some of the other questions I noted how 

important it is for NATO and the EU to work together, that cooperation is imperfect because of the Turkey Cyprus dispute. And 

Cyprus is a member of the EU but not NATO and Turkey is a 

member of NATO but not the EU, consistently block each other’s 

participation in the organization that they are a member of. And 

that is unfortunate and we have been working to try to overcome 

that difference, but it stands in the way of the sort of EU NATO 

cooperation that we would like to see. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you very much. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Sires. 

Mr. McMahon? 

25

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said in my opening statement, I think we all believe that a stronger, more coherent, more effective EU can be borne out of the Lisbon Treaty, and 

it is an important thing with our ongoing partnership and friendship. However, as I said I am concerned about some protectionism 

that you seem to be hearing coming out of the EU Commission, especially in the area of financial services which concern me, I represent New York City, Staten Island, and Brooklyn in particular. 

And the alternate fund managers directive, which you know is 

legislation which places unjust regulations on EU managers raising 

funds outside the EU or marketing a non-EU fund within the EU 

as well, as with a U.S., Swiss, or other non-EU manager that is 

marketing a fund within the EU. And more importantly, and what 

is widely seen as a protectionist measure, non-EU managers such 

as those in New York must be established in a country with EU 

equivalent credential regulations and ongoing supervision can start 

marketing to EU only after 3 years of time. So that is something 

that would hamper the competitiveness of American financial industries. And so I am wondering if you can respond to questions 

about that particular policy and in the broader sense are we worried about a growing protectionism coming from the EU first as it 

has to do with that initiative but also in the broader sense. 

Mr. GORDON. Thank you for raising that. I am not familiar 

enough with the details of that particular directive to give you an 

answer, although I am happy to look into it. As a general comment 

I would say, obviously we are always on the lookout for protectionist measures because the U.S.-EU trade relationship is so important to us. I don’t think that we have detected a protectionist 

move from the EU, and I certainly don’t think Lisbon will push it 

in that direction. 

And given the economic crisis that we have gone through on both 

sides of the Atlantic in the past year, one might have feared worse. 

It is conceivable that both sides could have turned to protectionist 

measures as unemployment rose and economic difficulties also rose, 

but that hasn’t really happened, and I think that leaders on both 

sides, I think if you look at the new team in place in Brussels and 

certainly is the case for the Obama administration understand the 

importance of free trade and open markets and globalization, and 

certainly in the United States-European context we believe that 

both sides benefit tremendously from keeping that open. 

Mr. MCMAHON. No, and I appreciate that, but just to belabor the 

point a little bit, if we were talking about, you know, agricultural 

products or manufacturing products, you know, the alarms would 

go off much more clearly because we would worry about getting 

into a traditional type of trade war, but the same could be true in 

the financial services industry as well if America takes retaliatory 

action. So would you look at that directive and then follow up with 

us? I will have my office contact you, if we could follow up on that 

I would appreciate it. 

Mr. GORDON. Absolutely. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. McMahon. 

Mr. Costa? 

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Mr. COSTA. Yes, a couple questions. Mr. Assistant Secretary, we 

were talking about earlier in comments that were made about extending formal structure to the current relations now that the European Union is thinking of setting up an office here in Washington 

and whether or not we might reciprocate in kind in Brussels. Your 

portfolio obviously includes Europe and Eurasian affairs, is it the 

intention of the State Department or this administration to make 

any structural changes as it relates to in response to the Lisbon 

Treaty in terms of how we go forward with this new refined partnership? 

Mr. GORDON. It is an interesting question, they are changing 

their structures, do we need to change ours in response? There will 

obviously be changes in certain mechanisms, such as the U.S.-EU 

summit that I mentioned, there is going to be a different team on 

the other side and we need to think about the best way to carry 

on that tradition and work with those new institutions. We will 

have to work with the new European External Action Service, but 

again we have to wait and see what it looks like and how it is represented, and so I do think that will entail some changes in the 

way we engage but it is something that we are going to have to 

figure out over time as they figure out exactly what role that. 

Mr. COSTA. So that will be a work in progress as well? 

Mr. GORDON. That will be a work in progress as well. Otherwise, 

you know, I will have, I mentioned, you know, as they set this up, 

assistant secretaries in the State Department should have a new 

counterpart in their structure and we will have to figure out how 

that works. 

Mr. COSTA. Who they are and how they move forward. 

Mr. GORDON. Yes, and what their responsibilities are. 

Mr. COSTA. In my opening comments I talked about, you know, 

looking back 20 years and looking forward 20 years, and none of 

us have a crystal ball obviously, but what is the administration’s 

expectations as, and sometimes we overplay that expectation level 

so we all should be cautious about that, but as to what this new 

Lisbon Treaty may portend in the next 5 years, the next 10 years, 

realizing that it is going through a transition. But on the positive 

side, what are your expectations and on the negative side or the 

down side, what do you think we should be concerned about in the 

next 5 and 10 years? 

Mr. GORDON. Again, a good question, I think you are right to talk 

in that sort of a time table. When you look at the history of European integration, it tends to move very slowly and in fits and 

starts, sometimes two steps forward, one back. 

Mr. COSTA. Such as the Lisbon Treaty. 

Mr. GORDON. The Lisbon Treaty took a lot longer than initially 

planned just to get ratified. 

Mr. COSTA. A number of steps forward, backwards, laterally. 

Mr. GORDON. Exactly. And I would say, you know, expect more. 

I have had, you know, some people come up and say, oh now that 

is done. Well actually it is not done, it is just beginning. What is 

done is the ratification, but as I think my testimony has demonstrated, there are an awful lot of questions, and it is not just our 

questions, you know, ask the Europeans themselves, they have big 

questions about how this will work, and it will take time. And just 

27

as our own institutions or anybody’s institutions, they can be implemented in different ways. 

Will the President of the Council and the High Representative be 

strong leaders who bring the EU along in a coherent manner or 

will they not have much of an impact on the member states? Depends in part on how successful they are in managing this. There 

is very much still to be determined. So by putting it in a longer 

term time horizon, just as——

Mr. COSTA. The practical positive expectations could be what in 

the next 5–10 years? 

Mr. GORDON. Could be a European Union, which again is our key 

partner on all of the global challenges we face and the place in the 

world with the most resources, economic and military, and democracies and the entity with which we really need to cooperate on Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Middle East, climate change, the positive scenario could be, you know, within 5 years or whatever time 

table you want to put on it, representation of that partner that is 

more global thinking, that thinks globally, and that is able to act 

more coherently with fewer internal contradictions. In other words, 

really a partner for the United States so that when we face these 

challenges it is easier for us to talk to that interlocutor and reach 

agreement on how to move forward together and they put more behind the common effort and it is a more balanced transatlantic 

partnership. That is the positive outcome. 

Mr. COSTA. And the down sides? 

Mr. GORDON. The down side, I mean there are other scenarios, 

one would be not much change at all where the new structure has 

come into place but in the end it is still divided, difficult to find 

consensus, still a useful partner but the new institutions don’t 

bring about the more coherent, effective partner. 

Mr. COSTA. The more streamlined decision making process, not 

greater efficiency, and the transparency we are looking for. 

Mr. GORDON. Right. And, you know, there is a theoretical negative scenario, but it really is unlikely, I mean some worry about a 

rival, that somehow if Europe is more united then we have a more 

difficult partner that we won’t be able to influence. But as I have 

stressed, you know, given that their interests on all of these questions line up very significantly with ours, I think that is an unlikely prospect, there is more to be gained than lost. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you, Mr. Assistant Secretary. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, and we have been joined by the gentleman 

from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman. Mr. Boozman? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just real quickly, I am 

a member of the NATO Parliament, Mr. Tanner is actually the 

President, Albio is also, but I guess my question is, I know there 

is many opportunities for Congress, Congressmen specifically to 

interact with our cohorts in Europe through various entities, can 

you talk a little bit about the importance of us participating in 

those kinds of things and being present, and as you have talked 

about there are so many things that are on the table right now, 

and again I would just like your opinion on that. 

Mr. GORDON. No, thank you for the opportunity to do that. As 

you mentioned, as others have mentioned, you have the TransVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:57 Mar 22, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\EU\121509\54133 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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atlantic Legislators Dialogue, you have the NATO Parliamentary 

Assembly, these are opportunities for the democratically elected 

representatives of the people on both sides of the Atlantic to talk 

about the challenges we face, and I think that is increasingly important, it is increasingly important as the European Parliament 

plays a greater role in Europe, and as we look to our European 

friends and allies to join us in dealing with these tremendous challenges. Again, because we are both democracies on both sides here, 

you can’t do this without the involvement of legislators and citizens. 

And, you know, we have seen that before when our Government 

might have appealed to European governments to join us in some 

enterprise and then those governments go their people or their parliaments and the Parliament says, you know, we don’t want to do 

that. Well, that is because we didn’t manage to convince those legislators and people that we have common interests and we should 

be doing it together. And I think that is extremely useful and 

healthy. And, you know, frankly you face the same challenges, you 

know, you have skeptical populations who wonder why they should 

be dealing with Afghanistan or Iran or whatever it might be, and 

you can compare notes on the best way to approach what we think 

are really common interests. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. 

And last but not least, the chairman himself, Mr. Wexler. 

Mr. WEXLER. I want to thank Chairman Delahunt for his very 

kind words and wish him the best; I know it will undoubtedly be 

a very successful tenure. I especially want to thank Mr. Gallegly 

for the 5 years, I believe, that I had the privilege of serving with 

him, as the ranking member and as the chairman, for the always 

dignified and respectful way in which he dealt with me and everyone else. It was a professional privilege to have the opportunity to 

work with him. I also want to thank the secretary for his friendship and cooperation over this relatively short period, and undoubtedly President Obama and Secretary Clinton I believe made a very 

effective choice as assistant secretary for your position. And I deeply want to thank all of the colleagues who were very kind to say 

things today and at other times. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t take this chance just to ask you 

about Turkey given Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent trip with Foreign Minister Davutoglu. For all the articles that have been written essentially suggesting that Turkey is turning eastward or Turkey is somehow minimizing its relationship with the West, I understand the basis of those articles, the basis of concerns, but to listen 

to the Prime Minister himself, to listen to Foreign Minister 

Davutoglu, it seems quite apparent to me that what Turkey is exercising is a regional policy, and a regional policy that more often 

than not coincides with the interests of the United States with 

some notable exceptions. 

And if anyone had suggested 5 years ago that Turkey would be 

in a major process of engagement with Armenia few of us would 

have believed it possible. If someone had suggested 5 years ago 

that Turkey would entertain a democratization effort that provides 

needed freedoms to its Kurdish and other minorities, few of us 

29

would have thought it possible, understanding that all of these efforts will have bumps and grinds and obstacles. And even in the 

context of Syria and Iran, where I myself at times differ, it would 

seem to me that the benefit to America, the benefit to the West, 

of having Turkey deeply engaged with its neighbors will almost by 

definition always outweigh the detriment. 

Having said that, I would like to more importantly hear your 

conclusions or your impressions, given the extensive time that 

Prime Minister Erdogan was here and spent with the President 

and with others, in terms of the status of our relationship with 

Turkey, and as to the issue of Turkey turning one way or the other, 

if you would care to comment. Thank you. 

Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Congressman, both for your kind words 

and for asking that important question or giving me the opportunity to address it. I of course have seen the same articles and the 

same analysis of Turkey turning eastward, and you are right that 

they are playing a more active role in the region and see for themselves a very important role in the region, and frankly it is also 

true that on some of those issues we have expressed different views 

and the Prime Minister and President Obama had a chance to talk 

about some of those, including on the approach to Iran and Israel 

and Syria. 

That said, I believe it is a misimpression to somehow think that 

Turkey is turning its back on decades of cooperation with NATO 

and the United States and Europe and the West in pursuit of some 

Eastern agenda. Indeed, the very fact of having the Prime Minister 

and spend several hours engaging with the President on how to 

deal with these common challenges hardly is the sign of a country 

turning away from the United States, just as their continued interest in joining the European Union, which is not always welcomed 

in some parts of Europe, is hardly a sign of moving away from Europe. 

So yes it is true that the Turkish Government is very active in 

seeking to play a major role in the Middle East and elsewhere, but 

it is also true that they remain a close partner of ours with whom 

we cooperate on such a range of hugely important issues, regional 

ones but also more global ones—Turkey has been a strong partner 

in Afghanistan where we have a special relationship and they have 

a special historical relationship, and we are doing good work together and they are contributing—but also on energy issues and 

other regional issues including normalization with Armenia. So we 

have a big agenda with Turkey, and it remains hugely important 

to this administration to continue to engage Turkey to make sure 

it remains the partner that it has been for a long time. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, thank you, Mr. Wexler, and let me echo 

your sentiments and the implications in that question, I think you 

know that I share your view on that particular issue. 

Mr. Assistant Secretary, it looks like that is it. I have one other 

just observation: The relationship between the EU and NATO. Oftentimes, we hear concerns about the EU supplanting NATO from 

some quarters here in the United States, which would obviously remove the U.S. from the decision making process, from the equation, 

if you will. And yet, I am sure it in some ways is befuddling, for 

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cism of NATO and its role both in the recent past and currently 

in Afghanistan. It is almost like I think we here in the United 

States have to seek some clarity in terms of how we view and how 

we articulate our understanding of the relationship between NATO 

and any European military efforts. If you choose to comment, you 

can, and if not, you are off the hook. 

Mr. GORDON. I am happy to provide a brief comment. You know, 

in the past some have sought to clarify that relationship very specifically or almost in institutional or treaty language. And the reality is that, you know, it would be impossible to reach such an 

agreement and it is probably also not necessary. We need to the 

extent possible to reach some agreements on avoiding unnecessary 

duplication, but we are just not going to agree in advance on which 

organization does what in every circumstance. 

What I am confident of is that our interests are similar enough 

that this should be something we can work out and that when the 

United States wants to lead and play a major role, the Europeans 

will be quite happy to see that, and so I don’t think we have to 

worry that there will be cases where we want to be involved or we 

want NATO to be involved and somehow the EU will insist that 

it be done in a different way. And therefore we should be pleased 

that the EU is building the capacity to do things in cases where 

we and NATO are not prepared to be involved. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me just add again going back to my original 

observation about the need for presence, when I see the dichotomy 

or diverse views on the same issue, which criticism being allocated 

in a fairly equal way between EU’s own efforts in terms of its security and then the criticism for NATO, I think that communication 

and that dialogue, because a lot of it comes from Congress, would 

be very positive and constructive in terms of, okay let us be clear 

about what we are talking about here. 

And I think it goes to, and I agree with your statement, I think 

it is unnecessary to have a treaty, but I think at the same time 

a full and ample discourse on those issues could go a long way to 

not muting justified criticism but making sure that the criticism is 

accurate and is stated with a full understanding of what the realities are. In any event, thank you for bearing with us, and you are 

excused, and thank you again. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And now if we could have the next panel come 

up. And let me extend my thanks again for your patience. It has 

been several hours, and I understand that we are going to have 

votes around 4:00, which means I am going to be very brief in my 

introductions and then would ask you to see if we can conclude 

your opening statements and then come back for a Q&A, I presume 

not all the members will return so there will probably be a fewer 

number of us to have to deal with. 

So first let me introduce Dr. Karen Donfried, who is the executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United 

States. Again, I am going to truncate a very long curriculum vitae 

to say that I have had an opportunity to deal with Dr. Donfried 

and I know she is an excellent witness, she is extremely conversant 

with these issues, and welcome. Next is Dr. Daniel Hamilton, who 

is the Richard von Weizsa ̈ cker Professor at the Paul Nitze School 

of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. He is a noted 

31

author, I have had the pleasure of hearing his testimony previously, he is extremely knowledgeable, and I look forward to his 

testimony. 

And finally, Sally McNamara, who is a senior policy analyst in 

European affairs at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher 

Center for Freedom. She was formerly the director of International 

Relations for the American Legislative Exchange Council. Before 

coming to the United States in 2004 she served as chief parliamentary aid to Roger Helmer, a member of the European Parliament 

in Brussels. Previous to that she acted as regional press officer for 

the British Conservative Party in the East Midlands of the UK. 

And she is a native of Nottingham, England. I love to say Nottingham, I was always enthralled as a youth by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Well thank you all for being here, and without further ado, 

please proceed with your statements. Let us begin with Dr. 

Donfried. 

STATEMENT OF KAREN DONFRIED, PH.D., EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT, GERMAN MARSHALL FUND OF THE UNITED 

STATES 

Ms. DONFRIED. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I would 

like to begin by congratulating you on assuming the chairmanship 

of this important subcommittee, and thanking you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a real pleasure to participate with you 

and the other distinguished members of this subcommittee to talk 

about the future of transatlantic relations under this new Lisbon 

Treaty structure. I would like to ask that my written remarks be 

submitted to the record. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Without objection. 

Ms. DONFRIED. I would like to highlight how the United States 

might constructively engage this post-Lisbon European Union. At 

its core, the Lisbon Treaty seeks to improve how a European Union 

of now 27 member states and 500 million citizens functions. The 

hope in this capital is that the European Union will now look beyond Europe and capitalize on more effective and more efficient decision making structures to help the United States meet the many 

global challenges that face us. What I would like to do is talk first 

about how Congress might engage this new EU and then focus on 

a couple of ideas for the Executive Branch. 

I wanted to start close to home for you and others by looking at 

the new legislative powers that the Lisbon Treaty provides for. If 

you look at the history of European integration, the European Parliament is the one EU institution whose power has consistently increased with each treaty revision, and that is no different here. 

And what we see is that the Parliament is expanding its ability to 

have an equal footing with the Council on most legislation. Parliament will also now have a decision making role on the entire 

budget of the European Union. 

What is interesting in the Lisbon Treaty is it not only increases 

the power of the European Parliament, it also increases the power 

of national parliaments, which will now have the opportunity to 

challenge a piece of European legislation if national parliaments 

deem it unnecessary. These changes were intended to make the 

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tems the most democratic expression of public opinion. What does 

this mean for the U.S. Congress? 

As we know, and Congresswoman Berkley was here earlier, the 

Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue has been the main forum 

through which Members of the European Parliament and Members 

of the House of Representatives have interacted. There is, of 

course, a separate web of bilateral exchanges at the national level 

between U.S. Members and their European counterparts, and the 

German Marshall Fund even participates in some of those. Given 

those existing structures and knowing that time is at a premium 

for Members of Congress, how do you structure deeper relationships recognizing that you don’t have a lot of time for that? We 

can’t just add meetings. 

The suggestion that I wanted to make is that we target a limited 

number of legislators on both sides focused on discrete, substantive 

topics, so that you are engaging members of the European Parliament and members of the national parliaments around specific 

topics, creating an issue specific dialogue. It seems to me that if 

each parliamentarian came away from these dialogues feeling that 

they had gained something for their own legislative process back 

home, these meetings become ‘‘need to do,’’ rather than just something that is ‘‘nice to do.’’

And I think we have to admit that it is hard to engage American 

Members in Europe. We need to engage them on the topics, whether it is homeland security or immigration, on which they have a 

legislative role to play. I think the Europe Subcommittee is well 

poised to try to generate ideas for how you might deepen this dialogue. I did notice that former colleagues, I used to work at the 

Congressional Research Service, are here in the room and you 

might want to see if CRS wants to prepare a report that is generating some new ideas on how to deepen this transatlantic parliamentarian relationship under the new Lisbon Treaty. 

Now if we think about the Executive Branch and how it engages 

the EU. We just heard from Assistant Secretary Gordon that the 

Obama administration looks forward to an EU that will play a 

larger role on the global stage. My question is, how do we encourage that development? I am asking that question because we need 

to acknowledge that the Lisbon Treaty offers the European Union 

the promise of a political role in the world commensurate with its 

economic weight, but the Lisbon Treaty only lays the framework 

that would provide the EU with the capacity to act, it does not 

guarantee a willingness to act. 

We have to remember that the European Union remains an 

intergovernmental undertaking. The powers of the European Union 

can only grow to the extent that the member states surrender more 

of their national sovereignty to this unprecedented multinational 

enterprise. Today, foreign policy still remains in the hands of national leaders. Yes, we have President Van Rompuy, yes we have 

High Representative Ashton. It is interesting, some of the press 

around these appointments has complained that they are not political rock stars. The Economist went so far as to refer to the two 

of them as ‘‘two mediocre mice.’’

I honestly think these critics are missing a fundamental point. 

Washington, and for that matter the world, will listen to Mr. Van 

33

Rompuy and Baroness Ashton if they genuinely speak for a united 

European Union. The Lisbon Treaty may solve the structural problem in providing the infrastructure to make possible a coherent 

voice for the EU, but only the member states can muster the requisite political will. To take just one example, will France and the 

United Kingdom be willing to give up their national seats on the 

United Nations Security Council some day in favor of a European 

Union seat? And the so-called ‘‘Big Three,’’ the UK, France, and 

Germany, are the key drivers of foreign policy at the EU level. 

If we think about the United States, we are facing serious challenges on many fronts. The Obama administration may well not be 

picky about whether effective partnership with Europe comes 

through bilateral, NATO, or European Union channels, as long as 

it is forthcoming. That said, if the EU can prove itself to be an effective mechanism for catalyzing substantial European contributions to global challenges facing us, simply put, if the EU can show 

that it can deliver, then it would very quickly become a preferred 

partner for Washington. 

Now, how can the administration encourage that development if 

we think it is a positive one for U.S. interests? Certainly one way 

is how President Obama will engage and work with President Van 

Rompuy. Another is how Secretary Clinton will engage High Representative Ashton. Beyond that, let me make two admittedly modest but concrete suggestions. 

First, in the opening months of 2010, President Obama could 

make a visit to Brussels and engage the European Union and embrace publicly its post-Lisbon architecture. Such a visit could be a 

fitting and bipartisan bookend to the trip that then President Bush 

made to Brussels in February 2005. 

Then President Bush met with representatives of the Parliament, the Council, and the Commission to express U.S. support 

for the development of the European Union into a more effective 

strategic actor on what most believed, wrongly it would turn out, 

was the eve of the European Constitution being approved, which as 

we know then failed. Given the continued phenomenal popularity 

of Barack Obama across Europe, even a short stop in Brussels 

could be a powerful sign of both United States support and also of 

heightened U.S. expectations for this relationship. 

Second, I would encourage the Obama administration to engage 

in a full court press to encourage a substantial EU civilian surge 

in Afghanistan. Ideally the European Union could announce this 

stepped-up commitment at the international conference on Afghanistan that will take place in London on January 28th of next year. 

British Prime Minister Brown and German Chancellor Merkel, together with French President Sarkozy, pushed for this conference 

as a place to discuss plans for handing control of Afghanistan back 

to local authorities over time, as Afghan capabilities are strengthened. 

A key deliverable at this conference will be the concrete measures the international community will pledge to support Afghanistan in this decisive phase. This conference would be an ideal 

venue for the EU to step up to the plate and redouble its efforts, 

again for the EU to show that it can deliver on an issue of great 

importance to the transatlantic community. I think it would be a 

34

fitting way to mark with action the enhanced foreign policy role the 

Lisbon Treaty outlines with words. 

The European Union has been, by almost any measure, a huge 

success. Two key elements of a state’s sovereignty are money and 

troops. The EU has already succeeded in creating a common currency, the euro. It may seem light years away from establishing a 

European army, and certainly the Lisbon Treaty does not do that. 

None of us can know today where this remarkable experiment will 

end. What we do know is that, as revolutionary as many of the 

EU’s accomplishments may seem, the process of European integration is in fact an evolutionary one. 

The EU will continue to grow and change, sometimes gradually 

and sometimes in spurts, over time. We Americans have played a 

critical role in fostering that evolution. We need to decide how and 

to what extent we want to continue to do that in the 21st century. 

It is easy to criticize the EU’s weaknesses and even to exploit 

them. The question is whether we want to help strengthen the 

union and if so how. I would argue the post-Lisbon architecture 

gives us new opportunities to engage and encourage a stronger 

partner on the other side of the Atlantic. Thank you so much for 

this opportunity to share my thoughts with you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Donfried follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Dr. Donfried. 

And now we will go to Ms. McNamara. 

STATEMENT OF MS. SALLY MCNAMARA, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, MARGARET THATCHER CENTER 

FOR FREEDOM, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Ms. MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Gallegly, and 

distinguished members of the committee, thank you very much for 

holding today’s hearing on this very important issue. Mr. Chairman, with your agreement I would like to request that my prepared testimony be entered as my formal statement for the record 

and just offer brief remarks to you today. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Without objection. 

Ms. MCNAMARA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of this distinguished committee, as legislators who uphold the democratic 

values of openness, honesty, transparency, and rule of law, it is important to note that the Lisbon Treaty has finally been ratified 

after 8 years without a shred of democratic legitimacy or public 

support. The appointment of two anonymous and underwhelming 

figures to the EU’s top post, Herman Van Rompuy and Cathy Ashton, was described by the Times newspaper as a Byzantine Brussels stitch-up. 

This largely describes how much of Europe feels about the Lisbon 

Treaty, a treaty that takes Europe in a direction inimical to people’s interests and inimical to the interests of the United States of 

America. On the face of it, it is easy to see why the U.S. would welcome the Lisbon Treaty. The EU argues that it finally has one telephone line to Europe and successive United States administrations, 

both Republican and Democrat, have called for Europe to shoulder 

a greater share of the world’s security problems. 

However, there is nothing in the institutional restructuring of 

the EU that will mean greater resources and political will to do 

more in places like Afghanistan, the Middle East, or Iran, just to 

name a few security hot spots. The EU might tell you that the Lisbon Treaty now means that Europe will speak with one voice on 

external relations, however sovereignty cannot be traded for influence. As the EU has grown in size it has essentially lost punch, 

taking forward the lowest common denominator positions which 

often frustrate American leadership on the world stage. 

It is vital that the United States recognizes the value in dealing 

with its enduring allies on a bilateral level and appreciates the Lisbon Treaty’s threat to these relationships. On issues of foreign affairs, defense, security, justice, and home affairs, including counterterrorism, bilateral relations work best for the United States. Replacing individual European allies with a single EU foreign minister means inevitably America’s interests will lose out most in the 

discussions that really matter, or as Dr. Henry Kissinger says, 

when the United States deals with the nations of Europe individually it has the possibility of consulting at many levels and to have 

its views heard well before a decision is taken. 

In dealing with the European Union by contrast, the United 

States is excluded from the decision making process and interacts 

only after the event. Growing estrangement between America and 

Europe is being institutionally fostered. It is worth considering 

43

what has taken place to date as a forewarning of what is to come. 

The EU has consistently frustrated the prospect of tougher sanctions against Iran and has acted, in the words of Oskar Fischer, 

as a protective shield for Tehran against the United States. 

The EU rolled out the red carpet for brutal Zimbabwean dictator 

Robert Mugabe in 2007, officially suspending its own travel ban on 

him to welcome him to Lisbon. In Afghanistan, the EU has been 

nothing more than a bit part player with a police training mission 

criticized by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly as too small, underfunded, slow to deploy, inflexible, and geographically restricted. 

However, it is the EU’s disastrous handling of the Russia-Georgia 

war that fully illustrates the EU’s limitations as a regional power. 

Then EU President Nicolas Sarkozy took the reigns of leadership 

following Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion in August 2008. Yet 

despite the failure of Sarkozy’s cease fire and Russia’s redrawing 

of Europe’s borders by force, the EU abruptly and without warning 

to NATO returned to business as usual with Moscow. Coincidentally, at the height of the crisis in the south Caucasus, the EU 

signed a deal with Moscow to provide Russian helicopters for an 

under-resourced EU mission to Chad, and it was recently announced that France is $0.5-billion Mistral class helicopter carrier 

to Russia. 

The Lisbon Treaty also reigns in its members from taking independent action on the world stage and potentially from standing 

alongside the United States where and when they choose to do so. 

The Lisbon Treaty poses the biggest threat to national sovereignty 

in Europe since the Second World War. It hands power to 

unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats far removed from member 

states. It removes Europe’s policy commitment to free and undistorted competition and instead favors protectionism, which will 

likely see the continued persecution of successful American companies. 

It duplicates NATO’s roles and functions and decouples America 

from Europe, killing the concept of indivisible security which has 

kept the peace in Europe for 60 years. The Lisbon Treaty will do 

huge damage to American interests in Europe, and contrary to any 

democratic tradition it is a self amending treaty which can aggrandize power not explicitly conferred on it by the treaties. As Lady 

Thatcher states in ‘‘State Craft,’’ that such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European super state was ever embarked upon will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest 

folly of the modern era. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. McNamara follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Ms. McNamara. 

Dr. Hamilton. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL HAMILTON, PH.D., RICHARD VON 

WEIZSA ̈ CKER PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR 

TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS, THE PAUL H. NITZE SCHOOL 

OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, JOHNS HOPKINS 

UNIVERSITY 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is a pleasure 

to be here again before this committee. And let me again extend 

congratulations to you at the helm of this subcommittee. I have a 

prepared statement which I would like to submit and I will just 

summarize briefly. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Without objection, thank you. 

Mr. HAMILTON. The other witnesses have stressed particularly 

foreign policy issues, and in fairness, not to duplicate that same 

testimony, I think it is probably appropriate to identify a few other 

elements of Lisbon that I believe affect American citizens and 

American interests and perhaps have not quite gotten as much attention. And I think the reason for thinking about these things is 

a point that you made, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gallegly made and others, that if you think about the relationship between the United 

States and Europe, the societies, the deep integration of our economies, we really have the most complete relationship we probably 

have with any countries in the world, and it is one that reaches 

so deeply into our domestic societies that one has to look not just 

at the foreign policy dimensions of what Europeans do or what we 

do, but how it affects really people. 

Our estimate, our latest estimate, we do an annual survey of the 

transatlantic economy, it is about to come out, is that this is a $5 

trillion economy, employing up to 14 million people on both sides 

of the Atlantic. Europeans employ more Americans in the world 

than they do any other nationality, and American companies employ more Europeans than any others in the world. It makes a real 

difference in people’s lives the way this relationship works. So the 

area I would suggest that Lisbon is probably going to have more 

of an immediate impact is actually not in foreign policy but actually in justice and home affairs. 

It was mentioned briefly, but if one looks at the provisions of the 

treaty, this is an area that will move faster I believe than building 

the External Action Service, and it puts freedom, justice, and home 

affairs, as it is discussed freedom, justice, and security in EU 

terms, also what we would call homeland security, at the center of 

EU priorities. It has the potential for giving us a partner that is 

more effective to dealing with human trafficking, crime issues, terrorism, building up European societal resilience to challenges that 

we face potentially with the United States. 

The Congress passed recently, ratified treaties that we have had 

with the EU now on mutual legal assistance and extradition, there 

is much work to be done in this area, discussions about legal agreements and data protection, on principles in combating terrorism, 

these all go centrally to issues of our domestic security and that of 

our major partners. So there are significant areas to develop here. 

51

One result of Lisbon in this area is a discussion of forming within 

the European Council a committee on internal security. 

This would be a new development, it would perhaps take on 

functions similar to the National Security Council, and it is something I think to watch because it could directly influence U.S. efforts. Another development which is in the Treaty is what is called 

a solidarity clause, and that is in the event of any natural or manmade disaster to civilian societies in Europe, each of the European 

EU members would come to each other’s assistance. This has I 

think considerable ramifications for how the Europeans will organize their societal security, and given the fact that terrorism knows 

no bounds, could have implications for the United States. 

Mr. Tanner mentioned the questions about Article 5 of the NATO 

treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty, and as you know, over this coming year there is a debate going on in the NATO strategic concept 

about how we think about Article 5 today. Our obligation across 

the Atlantic is through NATO. It is defined in Article 5 of the 

North Atlantic Treaty as coming to each other’s defense in the 

event of ‘‘armed attack.’’ And yet today we face a different realm 

of security challenge, and that is the networks that move people, 

goods, services, ideas across the Atlantic, the networks upon which 

free societies develop, are increasingly vulnerable. 

And we have yet to really in a systematic way address those 

challenges to our security, societal security. I believe while NATO 

can play a role there, and we have identified that in the report we 

issued earlier this year, it is at most a supporting player, and that 

if these are challenges to civil society, then certainly the main instruments of our civilian interaction, that is the U.S. and the EU, 

have to come together and think hard about how we protect the 

networks that frame our society. 

When the airplanes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11th and the Pentagon, The Economist noted this was not 

only an attack on freedom, it was an attack through freedom, using 

the very instruments of free societies to attack and disrupt those 

societies. We face the same challenges today, either through intimidation of cyber networks, of energy, or directly through terrorism. 

I would propose that we must consider now a supplementary 

clause, a pledge that we would make to each other through the 

U.S.-EU channel, and that is a transatlantic solidarity pledge. 

That is, in the event of a natural or man-made disaster that we 

would come to each other’s assistance at the invitation of political 

authority and as deemed appropriate. It would not compete with 

the NATO clause of armed attack, it would actually supplement it 

and provide us a new bond across the Atlantic to deal with what 

I believe is a much more direct security challenge that we have yet 

to face. A second area in which there is considerable change is in 

the area of development assistance and humanitarian assistance. 

The Lisbon Treaty gives the EU a legal basis for control over 

this, the High Representative would have huge resources now at 

her disposal in this area, and together the United States and the 

European Union provide 80 percent of the world’s development and 

humanitarian assistance. Certainly we can try to work to harmonize that better or be more effective together. At the last U.S.-

EU summit the United States and the EU revived the high level 

52

dialogue on development, and I believe if you read the summit 

statement you see they moved ahead with some low hanging fruit, 

I would put it, but I believe there is much more that could be done 

to make, as was mentioned earlier, better use of our scarce resources, really devoting attention to build synergies in development 

assistance, humanitarian assistance, and to reach out to other donors. 

It is in fact odd that we together provide 80 or more percent of 

assistance in both of these areas, and yet there are many other potential donors that we should be reaching out to, both in the Islamic world and I think to rising powers that could play more of 

a role. Another area that I think is perhaps underestimated but 

could potentially have considerable repercussions as yet uncertain 

is that in the Lisbon Treaty there is a reference to what is called 

the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This was a charter approved 

some years ago, was tried to be incorporated into what was called 

the constitutional treaty that failed, and yet in Lisbon, there is a 

reference to the Charter and it accords it legal status, which means 

that now the Charter of Fundamental Rights has equivalent legal 

status throughout the European Union as well as these treaties. 

And before, those were unenforceable principles, but today they 

will become European law, and it is important to look at those 

principles and those rights now because they are considerable. 

They not only include most U.S. rights under the American Constitution, rights that we are familiar with, but a catalogue of social 

rights, and positive social rights that the U.S. to date does not adhere to, rights to education, health, environmental protection, social assistance, unjustified dismissal, for instance, and a new right 

to petition, which is actually much more in the American tradition 

but had not existed in Europe before that, as 1 million European 

citizens can now petition their legislators to address issues which 

they had not before. 

I think it is uncertain what this catalogue of rights will mean, 

but it will mean that European Court of Justice will start to interpret this type of legal catalogue similar in ways to what the U.S. 

Supreme Court does now for the United States, and yet it is a 

whole other body of rights for which we have not experience, it will 

affect American citizens living in Europe, it will affect those American companies operating in Europe, and I think it is worth examining a bit further than seems to have been the case. 

Another element which has already been mentioned, I will only 

mention briefly then, is the growing role of the European Parliament. This has been stressed but I think it is important to look 

at specifically what is happening, and that is that this co-decision 

right, so called co-decision right, and budgetary authority in a 

whole range of new areas, including trade, Mr. Gallegly asked Assistant Secretary Gordon whether there would be an impact on 

trade. 

Actually I think Lisbon doesn’t change the trade piece on the executive side but it does on the legislative side. The European Parliament has co-decision, has to give approval now on many elements of trade as well as justice and home affairs, budgetary matters, agriculture, agriculture was mentioned before, transportation 

issues. It now has to agree to a whole range of international agreeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:57 Mar 22, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\EU\121509\54133 HFA PsN: SHIRL
53

ments, when the EU enters international agreements under these 

provisions it has to have the European Parliament on board. 

This makes the European Parliament essentially the only Parliament in Europe with powers approximating those of the U.S. 

Congress, and I think distinguishes now the Parliament from national parliaments in many different ways, even though national 

parliaments also have a new role. So back to the point that has 

been the theme of this hearing in a way is, if we are not appreciating the role of each other’s legislatures, this will now become 

even more significant with these changes. 

And so I have submitted to Congresswoman Berkley and to the 

European members of the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue a report we have produced recently suggesting very specifically a range 

of proposals of how the U.S. Congress, European Parliament, and 

national parliaments could have a more effective dialogue, and not 

only dialogue but engagement. I was pleased to see that those principles, those recommendations that I had sent her, were endorsed 

last week by the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue. 

I think there are a couple elements that are worth bearing in 

mind. One is that the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue only involve members of the House, there are not members of the Senate 

involved. And likewise, on the European side only members of the 

European Parliament, even though national parliaments also under 

Lisbon now have more of a role. Our proposal is in fact to include 

members of the U.S. Senate in this dialogue, that in the House 

that the members of the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue be 

made speaker appointments so they have a formal role within the 

House structure, and that on the European side there is another 

body within the EU called COSAC which is a grouping of the European Affairs Committee chairs in the national parliaments. 

They will now play more of a role and yet they are not part of 

the dialogue. And as we have said, individual member states of the 

EU have to go along with what is going on here, they have to implement much of this legislation, and to exclude national parliamentary members from a U.S.-EU dialogue I think misses some 

of what the dynamic will be. We have also suggested that the Congress should in fact open an office in Brussels, and the reason is 

not just because of Lisbon but my first point, which is the deep nature of our interactions across the Atlantic. 

Actions by the U.S. Congress deeply affect European societies 

and European economies. Actions now by the European Parliament 

and many European parliamentary authorities deeply affect the 

way Americans live today, they reach deep into our societies. There 

is more, you know, United States-European investment in any of 

the states that you represent, any single one, for instance in California or Massachusetts, more investment in the state of Massachusetts than all of U.S. investment in China and Japan put together. And those create jobs, and those deeply affect our communities. 

And so understanding the impact of our legislation now I think 

becomes critical, and it should start first with this type of intercrash across the Atlantic, because that is where globalization is actually happening quicker than other areas in ways that affect our 

citizens. Other things that could happen besides such a larger step 

54

is a joint consultative committee on the extraterritorial application 

of our respective legislation, simply an early warning system as 

members consider any legislation that might have this extra reach 

or the same for European parliamentarians that we are at least notified about this, because as you know, in recent years many of our 

frictions have come from the impact of these extraterritorial applications. 

We recommend that the members of the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue or Members of Congress and the Parliament be full 

members of the Transatlantic Economic Council, of the new Transatlantic Energy Council which has just been created, and along the 

lines of what I proposed about the solidarity clause and justice and 

home affairs, we propose the creation of a Council of Resilience, a 

Resilience Council across the Atlantic to deal with these issues, 

and clearly members of parliaments and the Congress should be 

fully part of those. 

So a whole range of areas, very specific ones, that we have submitted, I have it as an appendix in my testimony, which I would 

urge that the Congress give some due consideration to. In result, 

Lisbon I think together with a whole host of other issues that we 

are facing around the world today, we have to make this relationship more strategic. This is an important relationship with the European Union, but it is not strategic, and by strategic I mean a 

fluid, interactive way to interact with each other to confront the 

challenges we face and to look at the tools we have at our disposal, 

whether they be NATO, the EU, or bilateral relationships. 

That is not the relationship we have yet, particularly with the 

EU. NATO is indispensable but it is insufficient to the broader 

range of challenges we are facing, it does not have the full toolbox, 

and only by supplementing our NATO agenda and expanding it 

with the European Union do I believe we can really adequately address the kinds of challenges we are facing, not only very far away 

in Afghanistan or the Middle East, but actually right here at home 

when we deal with the fundamental issues about people’s livelihoods, about their jobs, their prosperity, and their freedom. I believe those are the kinds of specific issues we now must look at. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hamilton follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. And I know my staff 

has a copy of the proposal you have put forward, and I want to 

state that I find that interesting and I do really think the order of 

magnitude of the engagement has to be ratcheted up substantially, 

and it does come back to this Parliament to Parliament, particularly as you indicate, the enhanced role of Parliament almost becoming more of a counterpart to our own institution here. Your 

suggestion about the Senate, however, is problematic. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I am very sorry about that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. I am going to go first to the ranking member, I will save my questions for last, and then I will start and I 

will try to be the clean up hitter. Elton? 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will stay 

away from the Senate for a few minutes, we will have to deal with 

them another time. Ms. McNamara, thank you very much for your 

statement along with the other witnesses at the desk, but I would 

like to get your assessment of what you believe the EU could do 

to improve the perception of what has been referred to as the legitimacy concern among many of its citizens? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. Well it could start by obeying its own rules. 

When the Lisbon Treaty was first constructed it was called the European Constitution. It was rejected in two free and fair referenda 

in France and Holland, and the EU went away, made some very 

minor cosmetic changes and changed the name of it and said, the 

only thing we need to do now is not have referenda. This is completely illegitimate. You can’t just keep going back and asking for 

the right answer. 

Under the Lisbon Treaty a rejection by one was meant to be a 

rejection for all. Ireland rejected it in a referenda, and perhaps I 

have a nice passion for Ireland because my father is Irish, but I 

don’t like bullying. Ireland was badly bullied by the EU into saying 

yes. President Sarkozy preceded a visit by calling them bloody 

fools. I don’t think I have ever seen diplomacy on this level. So I 

think the EU should start by obeying its own rules, quite frankly. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Dr. Hamilton, do you want to touch that one? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well clearly as Dr. McNamara said, the process 

leading to this treaty was fraught with problems, and I agree with 

her that there were issues there involved. But I think democracy 

is an evolving process, and so the previous treaty, the constitutional treaty, was rejected, there were a few other elements that 

were taken out of it and amended, it was submitted again, and in 

other referenda and in this process of ratification it was approved 

by all member states and by these other additional referenda. So 

there was a democratic process there, it was simply an evolving 

one, elements that didn’t work were revisited. So we can look at 

it from here I guess and evaluate if it meets our standards, it 

seemed to meet the standards of the people of Europe and the EU, 

and now I think our question is how do we deal with it. As I said, 

I think there are elements pro and con maybe for American interests here. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. But more specifically, the perception, what more 

definitively can be done to improve on that? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well I am happy to give advice to my European 

colleagues of how they can improve their democracies, but as I said 

73

there is one element in the Treaty about this right to petition 

which does give some authority to citizens. How it evolves, as Assistant Secretary Gordon said, will take time, but it is an innovation that didn’t exist there before. As we said, the national parliaments are also given a role now, an important principle of the 

European Union sometimes advanced in the breach is that of what 

is called subsidiarity, that is the basic principle that decisions within the EU should be taken at the level most close to the citizen. 

That doesn’t always work, and there was no procedure for trying 

to assure that in the past. What Lisbon does is now give national 

parliaments two measures in which they could flag their objections 

to proposed legislation that is at an EU level when they believe it 

should either be at a national or even local level. And so there is 

a procedure now, again, will be tested, that would allow any national Parliament to flag concern about this type of legislation. 

How that will development I don’t know, but I think that was an 

effort to try to address some of this question of legitimacy of the 

institutions. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Dr. Hamilton, I posed a question to Ambassador 

Gordon, and I would like to get your perception or assessment. Do 

you see a more coherent EU as being problematic for U.S. foreign 

policy as it relates to future commitments of troops to different 

parts of the world? 

Mr. HAMILTON. As Assistant Secretary Gordon said, it is very 

hard to say that in advance because much of it is case by case. I 

think the basic realization that is important is that we are talking 

about the same set of forces across the Atlantic, 21 of the countries 

are in the same institutions NATO or the EU. There is not a creation of a separate army here or any other elements of defense. Defense is not in the Lisbon Treaty, and so it is still the prerogative 

of national authorities. The question is how do we, as a united set 

of nations, try to aggregate the potential we have together and deploy it to deal with the security challenges we face. 

We have a block between EU and NATO, part of it is related to 

the Turkey Cyprus issues that we discussed, but there are elements that we could explore that I think get around that or address issues we have to face right now. For instance, a more coherent Europe in the, as I mentioned, the internal security world is 

in American interests. In fact after September 11th it was the 

United States frankly that pushed the Europeans to create what is 

now a European arrest warrant and what is called Eurojust, an 

area of justice and home affairs. 

That debate had been going on for years inconclusively until the 

United States after September 11th says, we need this coherent 

Europe because we are directly threatened and a weaker Europe 

does not allow us to deal with that. It was the Bush administration 

that pushed that, and it was successful, and there are some treaties also negotiated during the Bush administration that I mentioned that have advanced that. So we clearly in that area have interests in coherent Europe. 

The other area I think which is worth exploring, we have submitted some recommendation, is not just in the purely military 

area but in civil reconstruction and stabilization. When we send 

our troops to places around the world they do their business, but 

74

usually stability is not ensured by the military alone. We see that 

in Afghanistan today. And so the EU is actually the framework in 

which the civilian deployments, as Dr. Donfried mentioned, are 

where that resides. The United States is trying to build up in the 

State Department this civilian response corps. 

The idea is to build and to be able to deploy rapidly civilian authorities and experts to deal with these kinds of civilian crises. 

There is a tremendous interest in the State Department in working 

with the EU in this area of civilian to civilian cooperation, where 

a more coherent EU capability would certainly be in U.S. interests. 

We are just building in fact our capability, the EU already has 

eight missions underway around the world in this area where they 

deploy civilians, they have 3,000 or more people on the ground in 

other countries doing things either with the United States or instead of the United States because it is relieving some of the burden. 

This is not an area we have developed very well, it is an ad hoc 

set of arrangements. It could be something that could be developed 

much further and I think in fact relieve NATO from some of the 

efforts it is having to do. Instead of sending our troops to do these 

kinds of tasks for which they are not trained, it could be a supplement. As I say, I think many of these areas are supplementary, not 

competitive, if we would manage it right, with what we do within 

the Alliance itself. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, if I 

might just have one final quick question, and the same one would 

be posed to Ms. McNamara, follow up to Dr. Hamilton’s statement? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. I slightly have a different perspective. When it 

comes to defense there are three areas in the Lisbon Treaty where 

qualified majority voting will take place now, so it is not all exclusively in the unanimity voting category. One of those areas was the 

appointment of the foreign minister, the High Representative 

Cathy Ashton. The Poles suggested when a suitable candidate 

couldn’t be found maybe they should do interviews to try and find 

the best person for the job, and they were told to shut up, go away, 

we will find someone tonight. You know, a revolutionary concept, 

try and find the best person for the job. 

Under Article 28 of the Lisbon Treaty there is now the legal 

basis for an EU army. This inevitably will lead to duplication. We 

already have a certain amount of duplication, we have a European 

Defense Agency, I believe in interoperability, but we should be 

using NATO for that, the Allied Command Transformation. The 

EU has its own operational headquarters when it was offered to 

use NATO’s shape. And the EU now wants to create a rapid reaction force of 60,000 men. Now this would be great if there 60,000 

men out there to help out with European security problems, but as 

we have seen in Afghanistan, Europe doesn’t have 60,000 men that 

it can deploy on a moment’s notice, so I think this definitely does 

pose a challenge to missions that America wants to undertake in 

the future. 

In terms of where the EU can help, I agree with both of my fellow panelists here that the EU could do civilian things. When 

Sarkozy was challenged, why doesn’t the EU become a civilian complement to NATO since you like doing peacekeeping missions, since 

75

this is the sort of thing that the EU is made up for? He outright 

said, absolutely not, the EU will be a military power too. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Ms. McNamara. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Elton. 

Mr. McMahon? 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Donfried, I want 

to thank you again for what the German Marshall Fund has done 

through the years in forcing transatlantic relations and keeping 

them strong. In your testimony you recommend for the Obama administration to seek a civilian surge, if you will, for Afghanistan, 

and then you make reference in footnote number 9 in your testimony to an article that you had co-written. Could you elaborate a 

little bit for the committee how you envision that? 

Ms. DONFRIED. Absolutely, and in a sense this is connected to the 

conversation that we were just having as well, which is how can 

the EU best contribute to the challenges that we face? I would 

argue that it is on the civilian side much more than the military 

side, and I think the test for the EU is, if it can produce a result 

that is greater than the lowest common denominator, if it can 

produce the result that is not just the sum of the individual parts. 

There are 27 member states in the EU, and certainly the United 

States can approach each one bilaterally and say, we need help 

with Afghanistan, what can you do? 

If instead Secretary Clinton could go to High Representative 

Ashton and say, you do this for us, you rally EU resources for Afghanistan, that would be hugely beneficial. Now, you can look at 

the glass as half full or half empty and you can say Europe hasn’t 

made a huge contribution to Afghanistan, or you can say $1 billion 

a year for Afghanistan is helpful to what the United States is trying to do. Could the Europeans do more, would we like them to do 

more? Absolutely. Let us try to figure out the right mechanism for 

doing it. 

I was struck when Secretary Clinton was at the NATO foreign 

ministers meeting in early December, Assistant Secretary Gordon 

referenced that in his testimony, and NATO put forward 7,000 additional troops for Afghanistan. Interestingly, Germany and France 

were not willing at that point to step up their military commitment 

to Afghanistan, saying they wanted to wait for this international 

conference on Afghanistan in late January. So we have two of the 

big member states already having given incredible significance to 

this conference in late January, and that is why my hope is that 

if we encourage not only those two member states but the EU as 

the EU to step up and say, in the wake of this renewed commitment that the Obama administration has made to Afghanistan, we 

too want to be there on the civilian side as a key partner. So maybe 

that is a hope, maybe it is an aspiration, but I do think it is an 

area where we should be pushing. 

If I could just make one comment on the democracy point that 

Congressman Gallegly raised, because I don’t want to leave the impression that the EU is an undemocratic institution. If we think 

about the Council, the Parliament, the Commission, the Council 

represents the member states and all of those individuals are directly elected, the heads of state. If we think about the Parliament, 

76

those are members that are directly elected. And you have the 

Commission, commissioners are proposed by the member states 

and then their selection has to be approved by the Parliament. 

Beyond the fact that the Parliament’s powers were increased and 

the role of the national parliaments was increased, with Lisbon 

there are democratic controls that exist. We should be careful to 

distinguish between direct democracy and representative democracy. Referenda represent direct democracy. We tend not to have 

those in the U.S. We have a system of representative democracy. 

You all are elected by your constituents and if they don’t like what 

you do here, then you are not reelected 2 years later. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Please, Doctor. 

Ms. DONFRIED. That would not happen in your case, I am sure. 

But my point is that in this country we feel representative democracy is a reasonable way to check the legitimacy of action. So the 

referendum isn’t necessarily the only instrument of democracy and 

in fact may not be the favored one unless you have a system of direct democracy. So I just want to suggest that representative democracy is alive and well in Europe and also is reflected in the way 

the European Union is structured. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Dr. Donfried. And now, Ms. McNamara, I got the sense from your testimony and what you said in 

follow up is that you are really not a big fan of this Lisbon Treaty, 

is that fair to say? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. That is a fair assessment, sir. 

Mr. MCMAHON. And do you have the same feeling toward the EU 

itself, its existence, do you think it is also the height of folly? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. If the EU were a collection of member states 

where we all get along and it was an intergovernmental alliance 

I think it would be a jolly good thing. I think it would be silly to 

say that we shouldn’t get on with our neighbors. However, good 

fences make good neighbors, not supranational treaties. 

Mr. MCMAHON. The thing is though, I guess——

Mr. DELAHUNT. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. MCMAHON. Certainly. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think there is a certain philosophical view, is 

it fair to say, and you quote Margaret Thatcher, that she would not 

be a fan of a United States of Europe for example? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. No one is really a fan of the United States of 

Europe, history is against it. If you look at the European Parliament as well, turnout for the European Parliamentary elections 

was 43 percent. If you had a 43 percent turnout for your Presidential elections you would think it was a crisis. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, please, you are getting on very thin ice 

here because we have had some elections recently that we are 

happy to get 20 percent. I find it interesting that, you know, you 

quote Margaret Thatcher, and I didn’t realize that she and another 

very popular conservative prime minister had such a disagreement, 

because back in 1946 at Zurich it was Winston Churchill who said, 

the time has arrived for a United States of Europe, given the lessons learned from World War II, and he certainly wasn’t submitting it as a purely economic relationship with neighbors. It was 

clear if one reads the speech in full that he was talking about engagement in a very real way in terms of a political relationship 

77

that would evolve over time. But I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I yield back. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I had the same. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. You can see me afterward, Ms. McNamara. 

Ms. MCNAMARA. I would love to get into a conversation about 

Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. We will have a jolly good time. 

Ms. MCNAMARA. Just to quickly say, I think Churchill would 

turn in his grave if he ever thought that his words were used to 

subsume Britain’s sovereignty in a United States of Europe. He 

said famously he wasn’t going to fight the Second World War to be 

subservient to the Germans. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, he also said this in that same speech, the 

structure of the United States of Europe will be such as to make 

the material strength of a single state less important. 

Ms. MCNAMARA. I would love to have this debate further, but he 

also says, you know, we will trade with you, we will be partners 

with you, but by God we will never be governed by you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, we can have it, I just can’t take the time 

from Mr. McMahon. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Of course, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and actually I had the same quote from Winston Churchill here. No, I am 

kidding. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well I know you do your homework, Mr. 

McMahon. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, sir, and I appreciate you following up 

on those points that I think is well taken and certainly it is a debate to have further because I think we, and you should know, that 

we in America certainly do not want to go back to those days when 

every European country had that fence up around it and it meant 

two world wars and continued conflicts in the Balkans and hundreds of thousands of lives, millions in Europe and hundreds of 

thousands of Americans as well. So there has to be I think some 

steps in the right direction, I guess you think the Lisbon Treaty 

goes too far. Do you envision an EU that makes sense to you in 

your philosophical parameters? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. I think the EU makes far better sense as an 

economic entity than as a political entity, although I believe that 

the EU now is in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden 

egg. In the EU we have regulations now about the curvature of bananas, about what kind of light bulbs you can buy. With that 

amount of overregulation, which is also being applied to American 

companies, and we saw how Microsoft was terribly persecuted for 

creating a very successful product, I think the EU is going in the 

wrong direction. 

The Lisbon Treaty takes out for the first time the EU’s commitment to undistorted competition. Overwhelmingly we are going 

down a protectionist direction. President Sarkozy has convened a 

meeting of 22 EU member states, not the United Kingdom and 

those who are in favor of reforming, in order to protect the common 

agricultural policy. Now, I am not here to defend American agricultural subsidies, I know you guys have some of your own, however, 

Europe’s agricultural subsidies are far higher and they kill more 

Africans every year than they should. 

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. McNamara, I am just going to have to cut 

you off because I want these other members to have an opportunity. So let me go to Mr. Boozman. The thing is we are having 

votes, so I want to give everybody a chance and not ask the three 

of you to linger any longer, you have been remarkably patient. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well I really don’t have a question, but in entering into the discussion, I think that the EU has the same problem 

somewhat we as Americans, if we entered into a North American, 

you know, pact and ceded sovereignty to Mexico and Canada, in my 

district I would have major problems explaining with that and it 

would be a huge problem. And so that is something that I would 

be very much against, I get a lot of mail, you know, about things 

like that. So these are difficult problems, they really are, and I 

guess the real balancing act is trying to figure out, you know, how 

your populations are happy with the final product that you come 

up with. So like I say, it takes the wisdom of Solomon. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Congressman Boozman. 

Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you so much. Congressman Scott from Georgia. First of all, Ms. McNamara, what I get you saying is that the 

military component, this joint defense, is the major cog in the 

wheel that brings about your major level of discomfort. Let me ask 

each of you, do you see this Lisbon Treaty making now the European Union a threat to the United States because of that? I have 

a number of questions, so if you could be real quick? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. If I can go first, to answer quickly, yes I think 

the EU, the idea for an EU common foreign policy came out of this 

whole idea that we need to counter balance the United States of 

America, it was the French Defense Minister who said America is 

a hyper-puissance, is a hyper-power, and we need to find a way 

and it is only the EU that can counter balance that. I could bore 

you to death with about 100 quotes from European leaders who 

have said similar things, but I won’t do so on the basis of time. 

Mr. SCOTT. Let me follow that up with, do you see the EU being, 

there is some validity to your statement, because one has to question whether or not the EU with a military component serves as 

a confrontational conflict within NATO who has a military component, but also within the 23 nations themselves who each have 

their own military component, I mean, which takes precedence over 

which? Then on the other side though there is the argument that 

a military component being added to the European Union could 

very well, if used properly and strategically, add to the effort for 

global security, particularly in an area that we have not touched 

upon but is a major growing threat, and that is of piracy. And so 

I am wondering if each of you might comment very briefly on the 

pros and cons of this to kind of get an opinion of what do we have 

to gain from EU getting a military component and what do we 

have to fear? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman would yield for a moment, I just 

would make the note that in fact, in terms of the antipiracy effort 

that is ongoing in so called hot spots, there is an EU presence and 

then there is a NATO presence, which I think there is compatibility and there seems to be coordination, even with nations such 

as Iran with whom we have a frosty relationship. 

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Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, let me tell you what I am really getting at here. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Sure. 

Mr. SCOTT. The big problem with the piracy situation is that we 

have no mechanism to get in and do what is essential to bring 

about some resolve to it, which is to provide a way to give some 

stability to that fledgling government, if it can be called that, in 

Somalia. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Right. 

Mr. SCOTT. And with al-Qaeda and terrorists and al-Shebaab 

building up going against that force, and that becoming again another threshold of terrorists in that Horn of Africa region, several 

of us in the NATO meetings examined that and it is a very, very 

topical issue within NATO and how we can respond to that. But 

let me get to a couple other questions, I want to know about the 

future enlargement, your opinions on the future enlargement of the 

European Union. 

One critical point is that of Turkey, will the Lisbon Treaty give 

any movement one way or another to Turkey’s request to become 

a part of the European Union, and do you see a problem with that, 

and isn’t it a good counter for the movement by some in the European Union do not want Turkey because of the Muslim culture, but 

that is also checkmated because Turkey has a very, very significant 

European and Christian foundation? So I am wondering will we see 

more positive movement of them bringing Turkey into the European Union as a result of this Lisbon Treaty? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. It is my expert opinion that Turkey will never 

be a member of the European Union. I believe that the forces hostile to its membership are too large to make it happen. I think you 

saw President Obama, who is wildly popular, he went over to Europe and to Turkey and advocated for Turkey’s membership and he 

got incredible pushback on that. The main problem here which I 

see is that the EU is not a good faith actor in negotiating with Turkey, it is bringing Turkey along saying, you have got to fulfill the 

acquis communataire, you have got to do X, Y, and Z, but ultimately I don’t think politically it will ever happen because as long 

as France and Germany and Austria don’t want it to happen I 

don’t think it will happen. The Lisbon Treaty I think will allow 

Croatia to get in and some of the less controversial accession countries, but I cannot see a situation where France is going to allow 

Turkey to accede. 

Mr. SCOTT. Do you agree, Dr. Donfried? 

Ms. DONFRIED. On the question of Turkey and the EU, we are 

engaged in a negotiation process that will last for the next 10–15 

years. There are 40,000 pages of EU legislation that Turkey has to 

assume. And my fervent hope would be that the Austrias and 

Frances of Europe would not talk about Turkish membership and 

whether they want it or not because it is not going to happen in 

Sarkozy’s term in office. And so I would prefer to say, let us have 

the negotiating process, wherever it ends, I think everyone agrees 

it is a good thing for Turkey to be looking west and coming closer 

to western institutions. So my hope would be that you could have 

this process of negotiation without prejudice to what the outcome 

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is, because in 15 years it will be a different Turkey and it will be 

a different EU, so that is what I would say on that. 

On your point about an EU military role, we have experience in 

this, the EU is engaged now in multiple military operations, and, 

I think for the most part, it has been beneficial to the United 

States, whether it was NATO handing over the military role in 

Bosnia to the EU, whether it is the EU piracy operation Atlanta 

that we are talking about off the Horn of Africa, that coordination 

has worked quite well. And the EU is not something out there, the 

EU is a creation of its member states. Why? Not because they want 

to create some multilateral nightmare, but because these countries 

of Europe realize they are losing national power. 

The British Foreign Secretary in October gave a compelling 

speech where he said the choice for Europe is simple, get our act 

together and make the EU a leader on the world stage or become 

spectators in a G–2 world shaped by the United States and China. 

The member states want to use the EU to aggrandize their power, 

and in all of the cases I have seen this has been good for the U.S. 

The EU having more power has meant that the EU can play a 

greater role in the world. Their interests, in 99 percent of the 

cases, are compatible with ours. So my concern is not too much Europe, it is too little Europe. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Dr. Hamilton, I want you to get into this 

and respond to that, but I also want you to respond to a very profound statement that you made that I grabbed at the end, and I 

think you were saying this Lisbon Treaty with new reforms for the 

European Union will have a direct impact here in the United 

States on our domestic situation particularly in terms of jobs, the 

economy, and so forth, and I would be very interested for you to 

explain to us how this Treaty and the reforms through the European Union will help us with our own domestic concerns of jobs 

and the economy here, as well as you can take your shot at those 

other questions as well. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, that will 

conclude my questions. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, just to enter back into this debate. 

You know, we are in this debate on the security side as if this is 

an either or kind of choice between NATO and the EU, and I go 

back to my basic point, these are all the same nations, 21 of the 

countries are the same countries, and the others are all members 

except one of the Partnership for Peace with NATO. If you ask, you 

know, who is with us? Traditionally not aligned countries like Sweden, which are not in NATO, are actually some of our best allies. 

And they are not creating some separate entities here, this is one 

set of forces on the military side, they are double- or triple-hatted 

depending on the kinds of engagements they are in, and we have 

to step back a minute and not get locked into this institutional debate it seems to me because we are all the same countries we are 

trying to engage on these kinds of issues. And if we look at that, 

it is not the luxury of, you know, which institution gets to go deal 

with these challenges. As Assistant Secretary Gordon said, there is 

enough to go around. And given strapped resources for the United 

States and for our European allies, if they can pick up some of the 

slack in areas where the United States either does not want to be 

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or cannot engage because of our other preoccupations, that should 

be welcome. 

Our concern should not be about a competitive, strong, you know, 

European counterweight at the moment, although I agree there are 

some in Europe that think that way, it is a weak Europe, it is the 

weak Europe that has gotten us into trouble in the past. It is a 

weak and fragmented Europe that was the principal preoccupation 

of the United States in the 20th century, and it is the potential for 

a stronger Europe that could be our counterpart and not a counterweight that I think would be strongly in the United States’ interest. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Excuse me, Dr. Hamilton, but we have 2 minutes 

left. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Okay, very briefly then, if I could. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Sure. 

Mr. HAMILTON. On the NATO EU, as the chairman said, on piracy it is a combined effort, and there is I think realization that 

both institutions have to work together in that. But as you said, 

the real answer to piracy is not in sea, it is on land. Here again 

the question is, can we work together, exchange watch lists of failing states with the EU Crisis Center, can we deploy the civilian authorities to deal with terrorism that is now building in Somalia and 

Yemen and other places? That is actually through the EU that we 

would do that, it is not a NATO per se effort. And so those are the 

kinds of things we have to do. 

On the enlargement issue, the basic principle that has I think 

given us success is that of the open door. Who is to say today what 

Europe will look like in the future? As Dr. Donfried said, our successes have come to say, let us build in the dynamism of change 

and, you know, 15 years from now it may be different. The President said, let Turkey in on the same conditions that you have let 

other countries in, no more, no less, it will take years, it is not an 

operational issue for today, for this administration I believe, it will 

be something for the future. 

And finally on your question about domestic, my point was simply that our relationship per se with Europe reaches deep into our 

societies, is driven by the private sector, is driven by our people. 

We have no deeper links than across the Atlantic, and those links 

since the end of the Cold War, seems counterintuitive, have deepened, not loosened. And so as I mentioned, the state of Georgia, 

there are just tens of thousands of Georgians who are employed by 

European companies, more than anybody else in the world. On 

shore jobs come from Europe, most of them, in the United States. 

So how Lisbon affects that, whether it helps or hinders those kinds 

of rules to provide free flow of goods and services and ideas, will 

be important to Americans. That is my basic point. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And we are just about out of time. It has been 

a great panel, you have all educated us. I think I spotted Ms. 

McNamara’s not being a Sarkozyphile, is that a fair statement? 

Ms. MCNAMARA. I think he is a great advocate for French interests. 

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. I noticed that you said in your written 

statement, above all it is a treaty that underscores the EU’s ambition to become a global power and challenge American leadership 

in the world. You know, that conjures up in my mind a little cabal 

sitting over in the corner plotting our demise. I tend to agree that, 

you know, these are not those stark kind of choices, and I don’t 

think they are necessarily adversarial. And maybe it is because of 

my age, I have learned one thing, and the only certainty is that 

there will be change, and what we are trying to accomplish is 

change that is nonviolent and change that evolves over time with 

import from everyone. But you have been a great panel, and I conclude this hearing, and we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:53 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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