Mandelson: Next US pres should strengthen Europe ties
The next US president should strengthen ties with Europe and give top priority to the Middle East peace process and securing international support for actions in Iraq, Peter Mandelson said tonight.
Mr Mandelson, the nominee for Britain’s slot on the European Commission, also said that developments in Iraq had shown that pre-emptive action was not always the best option.
“A doctrine of pre-emptive action is not one that can be applied scientifically, especially when intelligence on which we base judgments can neither be certain or precise,” Mr Mandelson said during a meeting of centre-left politicians and intellectuals in Budapest.
“But we cannot abandon all possibility of pre-emption.”
Mr Mandelson also said that “greater transparency” and reaching an international consensus before military action was essential.
“Who can doubt that the insurgency in Iraq would today be a lesser problem had a second resolution been agreed and the United Nations been in the driving seat from the start and throughout?” Mr Mandelson said.
“International legitimacy is what we need to urgently recover to secure progress in Iraq.”
Mr Mandelson also said the winner of November’s US election will need to strengthen ties with Europe.
“A more internationalist United States and a more united and effective European Union … is the essential partnership that must be recreated by whomever goes into the White House next,” Mr Mandelson said, calling America ”too important a partner to ignore or ridicule”.
Mr Mandelson was speaking at the Progressive Governance conference, organised to discuss the renewal of the left and Europe’s role in the world.
The gathering is hosted by Hungary’s newly elected Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.
The conference will be followed tomorrow by a summit set to be attended by several heads of government.
Hungary, along with nine other mostly Eastern European countries, became a member of the EU in May.
