For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 27, 2004
The German-American Alliance for the 21st Century Joint Statement by President George W. Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
Today, we pay tribute to the deep friendship between the German and
American people. The sacrifices of two generations, and the visionary
leadership of our forebears, created the conditions for a Europe whole,
free, and at peace at the dawn of the 21st century.
We renew our determination to work together, and with our friends
and allies in Europe and beyond, to achieve a more secure, prosperous,
and just world. We are committed to strengthen transatlantic
relations, and act in common purpose to address the challenges before
us.
The foundation of German and American relations remains our shared
commitment to the values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law,
and to economic opportunity and prosperity through free and open
markets. These are fundamental to our own societies, and to our common
efforts in meeting the great challenges of a new era: the nexus of
threats posed by terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny,
poverty, the lack of opportunity, and violent extremism.
In this spirit, we commit our nations to an ambitious goal, rooted
in our shared values and experience: to promote freedom, democracy,
human dignity, the rule of law, economic opportunity, and security in
the Greater Middle East. Fear and resentment must be replaced with
freedom and hope.
We must build a genuine partnership, connecting Europe and America
with the wider Middle East, aimed at cooperating with the countries and
peoples of that region to achieve these just objectives, and to live
side by side in peace. Together with our friends and allies in Europe
and the Greater Middle East, we will coordinate our efforts closely to
respond to calls for reform in the region, and to develop specific
proposals to put before the G8, U.S.-EU, and NATO Summit meetings,
which will be held in June 2004.
At the same time, we reaffirm our commitment to the vision of two
states - Israel and Palestine - living side by side in peace and
security, and renew our commitment to the "Roadmap" as the best means
of moving forward toward that goal.
We pledge to enhance the international effort to help the people of
Afghanistan restore peace and security in their nation, including by
the further expansion of NATO's International Security Assistance
Force. We will also work together to achieve success at the upcoming
international conference on Afghanistan, hosted by Germany. We welcome
the agreement on a new constitution for Afghanistan, and place
particular emphasis on creating the conditions for free, fair and
peaceful elections in Afghanistan later this year.
We are united in support of a free Iraq: a secure, unified,
democratic, and fully sovereign nation, at peace with itself and its
neighbors that will contribute to world peace and stability. We
welcome and support the vital and growing role of the United Nations in
Iraq, and look forward to the transfer of sovereignty to a new Iraqi
government on July 1, 2004.
We are resolved to strengthen our economic relations by increasing
opportunities for trade and investment between the European Union and
the United States, and by promoting trade liberalization and economic
development for all countries through the Doha Development Agenda
negotiations. In the framework of the G8, we will cooperate to help
the poorest countries benefit more fully from the global economy. We
remain committed to our joint fight against poverty in the world, and
we also undertake to tackle the scourge of HIV/AIDS and to cooperate to
improve the world environment.
We reaffirm our commitment to NATO as the anchor of our collective
defense and an essential forum for transatlantic consultations. We
underscore our support for the continuing process of European
integration and stress the importance of Europe and America working
together as partners in a community of shared values. We welcome the
historic enlargement of both NATO and the European Union, which takes
place this spring, advancing our goal to erase decades of division in
Europe.
With a common agenda of action, the German-American alliance will
prove as critical to the advance of freedom, security, and prosperity
in the 21st Century as it was in the second half of the 20th Century.
# # #
|