November 15,
2001
Ambassador Guenter Burghardt,
European Union, Delegation of the European Commission
to the United States, Washington, D.C.
In his well received lecture, entitled
: New Challenges for the Transatlantic Partnership,
Ambassador Guenter
Burghardt, Head of the European Commission
Delegation to the United States discussed a number of
new challenges for the transatlantic
partnership in the wake of the events of 11
September, and also a number of important - and
related - economic and political developments
within the European Union. He pointed out that the
European Union has been the driving force in Europe’s
profound transformation during the second half of the
20th century. Its emergence from the ashes
of the old system of rivaling nation-states has been
the most remarkable success story of
contemporary politics. He underlined that the European
Union is vigorously pursuing the agenda of further
deepening it’s unity and extending it to the new
democracies liberated from Communist domination.
The terrible event of 11 September was
a turning point in the transatlantic relationship,
said the Ambassador. It presented a formidable
challenge for the United States, the European Union,
and the development of the transatlantic relationship.
It underscored the need to generate even greater
commitment and common purpose to push ahead
with the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA), which
consists of four broad ‘chapters: expanding our
common values, to address together regional
and global challenges, to manage the
bilateral and multilateral aspects of our all
important economic relationship, and last
but not least to have people-to-people dialogues
between both sides of the Atlantic.
