Remarks With European Union Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner

COMMISSIONER FERRERO-WALDNER:  Ladies and gentlemen, we are very, very happy today to have had the chance to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Mr. Zoellick on his first visit here.  We had a very interesting and in-depth meeting, although we didn't have too much time.  You have seen we have prolonged our talks a little bit.  I think after President Bush's visit here and the visit of Secretary of State Rice it is an excellent idea to go on.  It's a promising future that we have.

We have touched upon many, many international issues and I would say we share so many interests.  We have so many positive objectives.  Of course here and there we disagree, but we should never let this obscure the fact that we have much more in common than divides us.

Let me say that we have discussed the Middle East, Iran, Iraq.  We have spoken about the wider Middle East where in the Middle East and the east of Jordan we are seeking, as you know, to develop a synergy between our separate efforts to support political and economic reforms, and we have spoken about Kyrgyzstan where we both want to see a dialogue between the political forces to the holding of free and fair elections.  We should build I think also in a coordinated approach similar to what we did in Ukraine.  And we also have spoken about issues like for instance the extension of the October deadline [October 26, 2005] of the biometric passports.  You know that the European Union is making good progress towards this objective but we would need a little extra time.

And I must say that I also appreciated that there were moves towards drawing up a road map to expand access to our Visa Waiver Program to those Member States that currently are not yet covered.  I think it would be a great shame if by insisting on the October deadline even countries covered by the waiver were then to lose these highly valued arrangements but we will go on of course working on this issue.

And let me also say that on Iraq of course the question is open, but we do hope that Iraq will have a government very soon and then maybe an international conference that would be at least politically backed by both the European Union and the U.S. which would be a very important next step going on to seeking reconstruction and also political stability.

Here I'll stop, and again, I'm delighted to have Mr. Zoellick here.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  Thank you, Commissioner.  I want to thank the Commissioner for taking the time to see me today.  In a few minutes I'm going to have a chance to meet Commissioner Verheugen, an old friend as well.

I've come to Brussels after I think 12 other stops in Europe, and as the Commissioner mentioned, this visit is a complement to that of President Bush and Secretary Rice because I wanted to visit a number of the capitals in Europe that they did not have a chance to visit, and then to conclude it with a meeting with the North Atlantic Council of NATO today, see some Commissioners, and tomorrow I'm going to meet with some of the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.  Then I have one more stop, Iceland, on the way back.  And I will be in Norway for a conference dealing with Sudan early next week.

So as the Commissioner said, we were able to cover a full range of topics, both of a bilateral nature, but as she mentioned, increasingly a number of topics where we want to work together on issues outside the Euro-Atlantic space.

So again, thank you very much.

VOICE:  Okay, we had a very friendly meeting that went on for an hour, but because Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner has a plane to catch I'm afraid there'll be very, very few questions.

QUESTION:  Does the EU and the United States have already a clear picture on the way forward how Kosovo should be dealt in terms of what the status talk should begin, and especially what kind of status and international relief [inaudible] not seek for Kosovo?  And --

COMMISSIONER FERRERO-WALDNER: May I just answer to that?  We have not discussed Kosovo today.  And you know of course the year 2005 is an important year.  The question of review of the whole process, but we have not touched upon it today.

QUESTION:  Then the question as I said goes to Mr. Zoellick.  The second question will be to Mr. Zoellick as well, what's your reaction on the calls of President Chirac during his phone call with the Chinese President about his insistence on the lifting as soon as possible of the arms ban?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  Since our time is short I'll try to give brief answers to both.

On the first one, I did have some very useful conversations particularly in Southeastern Europe with Hungary, with Greece, with Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, and was able to accomplish exactly what I wanted to which was to listen and to learn their perspectives.  One of the messages that I took back which I did discuss in the NATO Council and which I'll try to discuss tomorrow with European Parliament, is that as the Commissioner mentioned 2005 is the year in which we'll be reviewing the situation in terms of the standards and the status.  But I also had a sense that this will be a challenge for Europe and the United States together, because we need to try to create the right incentives for Kosovo, for Serbia, for Croatia.  And to be frank, I know there's a certain weight on the European Union with the past enlargement process.  So this will be a subject that I know we will talk together as well as operate through the UN channels on.

On your question about President Chirac, when President Bush was here he commented about some of our concerns about lifting the embargo.  One of the questions that came up in my meeting with the NATO Ambassadors was the possible dangers this could have for transatlantic defense cooperation.  One of the items that I highlighted was that the response to the issue from key members of our Congress -- Senator Lugar, Senator Warner, Senator Stevens, people who work very closely, frankly, with me and others to try to protect against those who might have taken a more narrow policy on defense cooperation in past years.  Their response is one that I hope gives people some pause, because we hate to have this interfere with the direction we've been trying to go.  But also this is not just a question of the U.S., obviously.  We've seen concerns in Japan and concerns in Australia about the overall security context.  So I expect that will be a topic that I'll have a chance to talk about with the European Parliament tomorrow as well.

QUESTION:  Just to pick up on that, Mr. Zoellick, how far would you say that there's a danger that, were there to be a lifting of the China arms embargo, we could see not just transatlantic defense cooperation but perhaps trade relations in some way affected that could be a wider spin-off from this?

Also, what are your warnings to your partners in Europe about a failure to reach agreement on the Airbus-Boeing dispute by Monday of next week, the deadline that has been imposed?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  On the first one, I think I answered the question in the context of defense cooperation and particularly given the concerns stated by some of our members of Congress and the President was clear in his visit about the dangers of this.

Beyond that in terms of the trade relationship, the United States and Europe have a very strong trade and investment relationship and we want to continue to do that and work with each other to try to complete the Doha agenda.  It has always been our approach and certainly I worked on this in the past four years to try to manage disputes.  So we're trying to be frank and honest about the danger here, but not trying to sort of expand problems even further.

On your second question, oh, Airbus and the implications.

I've had a slightly different view on this I guess from the start which is that the United States and Europe both belong to the WTO.  Now and then we're compelled to bring disputes there.  It's a multilateral organization.  That's why we created it, so as to handle disputes in a fair, rules-based system.  So when we first brought the action last year we expected that you would follow through on the subsidies disciplines that both the European Union and the United States have agreed to.  Commissioner Mandelson wanted to try a negotiating process. We made clear that we needed to eliminate subsidies as defined by the WTO.  And frankly, it was never my view that it took that much time to implement it, it was just a question of political will.  I think we've discovered that as his recent statements have suggested that the European Union constituencies may not be comfortable moving to the elimination of launch aid.  Even after we made our agreement in January I noticed that the Airbus representatives were out almost the next day saying they wanted to proceed with launch aid.

So again, if need be, and we're willing to continue the stand-still beyond the 90-day period if the European Union could follow through on the core principles that we agreed in January.  But if not, that's what the multilateral system is for.  So this talk that it would interfere with the Doha agenda is not talk that I subscribe to.  We've had disputes over the past four years, and Commissioner Lamy and I managed to handle some pretty tough ones, whether it be steel or FSC or other topics, and yet work closely together on the Doha agenda as well.

COMMISSIONER FERRERO-WALDNER: May I just add that I very briefly conveyed the message from Peter Mandelson that he would like still to have this two-phase approach until 11th of April, but let's see how things evolve and of course it's up to those when we are going into all the details.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  I can verify she raised it, and I said she really doesn't want to get into it.  [Laughter].

QUESTION:  In relation with the visa conflict the Commissioner said something, you have said nothing.  How are things going on?  The other day we got the news about apparently the Congress is going for the hard and difficult way.  Do you think it will be easy to convince the Congress to be more flexible?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  Well, to go back to the history of this issue because I think it's important to have it in context, these were changes that our Congress put in place after September 11th as part of a question of security of people coming into the United States.  The Administration tried to get Congress to extend their deadlines for two years.  The Congress was willing to extend it one year, not two years.  And so as the Commissioner and I discussed, I know a number of countries in Europe have worked hard to meet the deadline.  Some have made it, some are close.  Some look like they're further away.  So when I actually had a chance to read Chairman Sensenbrenner's letter, as I hope you will, he was basically saying people should not expect that Congress will extend it and he was urging parties to continue to work towards that end.

We realize it's a serious matter.  It's a serious matter in terms of security.  It's also a serious matter in terms of getting people into the United States.  So we will continue to try to work with our partners in Europe on it, but also with the U.S. Congress.  But right now it's a law, and so we're bound by it.

VOICE: We could talk much longer, but I'm afraid you have to go to the airport.  So thank you very much for coming so late in the afternoon.  Thank you.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK:  Thank you.