LONDON -- Nowadays the European Union and the United States seem to be locked in almost permanent quarrels. One moment it's bananas, then it's steel, land mines, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, European defense arrangements and NATO. Then it's the question of whether there should be a permanent international criminal court.
The disputes are getting more serious with strong differences over the handling of the Middle East crisis, charges that the Europeans are not only biased in favor of the Arab/Palestinian cause but actually turning back to dark anti-Semitism (which is nonsense), and repeated views from across the Atlantic that the Europeans are weak and unreliable allies in the war on terrorism.
Bitter, and sometimes contemptuous, words are heard from the lips of senior EU officials in Brussels, such as Commission President Romano Prodi and External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten, about American foreign policy. On the U.S. side, senior journalists in Washington, reflecting the administration's feelings, are pulling no punches in their contempt for Europe's stance on a wide range of issues.