Sometimes editorials can also be about asking people’s opinions, rather than expressing the writer’s ones. Today is definitely the case.
At a time when the ‘usual’ Transatlantic relation inherited from World war II is every day becoming more obsolete than the day before, it is time for both leaders and citizens of both sides of the Atlantic to ask themselves a few questions. Here are seven questions which may help Americans and Europeans figuring out what kind of relation they want to shape up for the next decades. If you feel like it, do not hesitate to send us your answers and comments, we will publish them.

1. What is your current assessment of the 'state' of transatlantic relations?

2. Do you think that the next decade will bring positive news in the two 'historical' pillars of the US-EU relations: security and trade?

3. Is 'people-to-people' cooperation (networks of universities, Ngos, foundations, community leaders, …) able to open new fields of constructive US-EU cooperation in the coming years? In which way?

4. Being the two richest and most democratic areas on the planet, do you think that both the EU and the US societies face a special responsibility regarding globalization on the one hand; and on the other hand, do you think that they will face a growing number of similar challenges in their way towards the next decades?

5. Beyond treaties, organizations, common interests, ... the cooperation between Europeans and Americans is, in the end, a matter of people cooperating with people (politicians, civil servants, businessmen, executives, professors, activists,). How do you assess this ‘human factor’ today? Should it be improved?

6. What do you think of the fashionable images used to oppose the European Union and the United states of America : old vs modern, Venus vs Mars, Odysseus vs Achille?

7. To conclude, at which conditions, do you think that the various crisis affecting Middle East areas, knowing the different visions pushed forward by USA and EU, may improve rather than damage Transatlantic cooperation?

Send your answers/comments to Franck Biancheri, contact@newropeans.org

Paris
Franck Biancheri