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Treaty eases tension in EU-US relations

The EU and the US signed an extradition agreement in Washington yesterday allowing terrorist suspects to be handed over to the US authorities.

The agreement is the centerpiece of the first EU-US summit since the Iraq war, and both sides will be trying hard to accentuate the positive, despite rows about trade, global warming, genitically modified foods and other issues.

The laboriously negotiated deal, part of Europe's response to the Sept. 11 attacks, makes it clear that anyone likely to face execution will not be surrendered.

But it raises questions about the quality of evidence that the US will need to provide to seek an extradition.

Last year, the US failed in its attempt to extradite the Algeria-born pilot Lotfi Raissi, who was arrested near London 10 days after Sept. 11 and accused of being the flight instructor of four of the hijackers.

But when a British judge demanded that the US authorities provide proof of their claim, the case against him crumbled.

A further agreement announced Tuesday allows US and EU law enforcement agencies access to bank accounts in the fight against crime and terrorism, complementing the arrangements on cooperation between the FBI and Europol, the EU's police agency.

The US often prefers to deal with individual EU states, but the union is making steady progress towards harmonizing its own rules.

Another security agreement will allow US authorities to search containers leaving EU ports.

But tension surfaced again when the European commission bluntly rejected US President George Bush's criticism that an EU moratorium on GM foods was contributing to famine in Africa.

"It is false that we are anti-biotech or anti-developing countries," a Brussels spokesman insisted. "These things said by the United States are simply not true."

The EU spends seven times as much on aid to Africa as the US.

EU leaders badly want to clear the transatlantic air. Their summit last week in Greece laid the groundwork by publishing a new security doctrine that emphasized European concern about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism while pointing to multilateral approaches as the best way to tackle them.

"We cannot claim it is just business as usual," a senior EU official admitted. "We are emerging from a period of strain and we cannot simply claim that all is behind us."

The stakes at the meeting are high: the US and the EU account for nearly half the world's trade, worth US$747.38 billion annually.

The US will press the EU to agree to reform the common agricultural policy -- EU farm ministers resume talks in Luxembourg -- which in turn would help advance the world trade liberalization negotiations.
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