Following the introduction of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament has claimed its first scalp thanks to the increased powers bestowed upon it by the Treaty; and it has a distinctly anti-American flavor. Voting in Strasbourg, Parliamentarians voted down an EU-US agreement on tracking terrorist financing which was agreed in November 2009, before the passage of the Lisbon Treaty.
Top Administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are reportedly furious. The Terrorism Finance Tracking Project, introduced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is now in jeopardy. This comes in the wake of the attempted al-Qaeda terrorist bombing of flight 253 from Amsterdam-Detroit on Christmas Day. So much for “nous sommes tous Americains.”
The European Parliament is an endemically anti-American institution which has relentlessly prosecuted the American-led war on terrorism. In 2006, it formed a temporary committee to investigate America’s extraordinary rendition program, with some MEP’s comparing U.S. detention sites with the Soviet gulags.
There is intense dissatisfaction and disillusionment among Europeans with the Parliament, resulting in the lowest turnout for Europe-wide elections last June. That dissatisfaction is clearly spreading to the U.S. now, despite President Obama’s massive commitment to improving America’s image in Europe. The Administration should rue the day that it congratulated the EU on the passage of the Lisbon Treaty.