AN EU-US summit will take place in Washington on December 16th, the Irish presidency announced last night. The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, and the president of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, will meet President Clinton in one of the first major foreign policy engagements of his new term.
Mr Bruton's first meeting with Mr Clinton since his re election will be seen as an important opportunity to assess the EU policy of the new administration and to touch base on Irish US relations and the peace process.
The meeting, part of the agreed series of biannual summits, was originally scheduled for December 4th in Dublin in the aftermath of the summit in Lisbon of the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe. But Mr Clinton is not now expected in Lisbon.
The summit will take place in the White House and focus on the full range of EU US co operation, from the series of trade, business, educational and political contacts foreseen in the "New Transatlantic Agenda" agreed last December in Madrid, to co operation in Bosnia, the Middle East, and Central Africa. The renewal of the IFOR mandate in Bosnia is due at the end of December.
Mr Bruton and Mr Santer will also want to test the water with Mr Clinton on the dispute about the anti Cuban Helms Burton legislation, whose extra territorial effects have seriously angered the EU. The Union has taken the issue to a disputes panel in the World Trade Organisation. Mr Clinton has signalled his unhappiness with the legislation but may feel his hands are still tied by a majority Republican Congress.
