Bruton named Euro envoy to U.S.

“I am delighted and honored,” Bruton said in a telephone interview from his office in County Meath.
Bruton said one his most important jobs will be to shepherd the strong economic relationship between the EU and the United States.
“European investment in the U.S. is responsible for 12 million American jobs,” he said.
Bruton will replace the current ambassador to the U.S., Guenter Burhardt, a career EU diplomat who has barely been able to hide a certain level of disdain and displeasure with the Bush administration over such issues as the war in Iraq and the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto environmental treaty. Burhardt will step down after five years as the head of the EU delegation.
EU officials are eager to bolster the trans-Atlantic relationship as Europe and Washington try to restore a more civil level to their diplomatic interaction. Officials believe the appointment of a former European prime minister elevates the EU ambassador’s position and Bruton’s more fiscally conservative Fine Gael approach will appeal to U.S. leaders.
“I’ve never met George W. Bush, although I did meet his father, who made me an honorary Texan,” Bruton said, noting that he has a plaque on his wall commemorating the honor.
Texan or not, Bruton said he will not shy away from some of the more jagged issues facing the U.S. and the EU.
“It would be foolish not to realize that we need better and more sophisticated rules on when to use force against a sovereign country,” he said when asked about what he would do about the war in Iraq as ambassador.
“We must deal with how to proceed in the future, even if we cannot agree about how things were handled in the past.”
Bruton was taoiseach from 1994-97, during a period of intensive input from former President Clinton on the Northern Ireland peace process. His previous visits to the White House and Capitol Hill will certainly put him at ease in his new position.
“If we don’t always agree on certain issues, then we should at least understand why we don’t agree,” he said.
“We are at a crossroads in Iraq, and certainly Europe, like the United States, would like to see a democratic state based on the rules of law to emerge.”
In May 2003, he was invited to help draft a paper on repairing the EU/U.S. relationship at the foreign minister level. He was president of the European Council from June through December 1996, and he most recently helped draft a constitution for the EU.
Bruton’s appointment to the post has been discussed for 14 months. He said it had been a difficult personal decision to make.
“Moving to live in another country will be quite a change for me and my family and we’ve been considering it privately,” he said.
Bruton’s wife, Finola, will join him to live in Washington in the beautiful European Union ambassador’s residence just a skip away from Senator Hillary Rodham and former President Bill Clinton’s home in the embassy row section of Washington.
Bruton’s staff said details on arrangements for the couple’s four children, aged from 22 to 16, were being kept private.
The new ambassador would not tip his hat toward any of the three Fine Gael members considering a run to replace him.
“I leave when we are on an upward swing with our alliance with the Labor Party; we are moving in a healthy direction,” he said.