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Jacqueline
Grapin, President of the European Institute
"Trying to Bring America and Europe Together"
Article by John Shaw
Published in The Washington Diplomat
April 2000
Jacqueline Grapin, the president and co-founder of the European Institute, has developed a daily ritual to ensure that she fully understands the perspectives of both Europeans and Americans. She begins each morning by carefully going through leading American newspapers, magazines and foreign policy journals. Then in the evening she sets aside time to carefully study the European press. “It's very important for my work. It's part of the balancing process," she said. Warm and gracious, Grapin speaks proudly about the accomplishments of the European Institute which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year and is the leading research group in Washington that focuses on the complex U.S.-European relationship. Grapin said the overriding goal of the Institute is to facilitate a balanced, substantive dialogue between Americans and Europeans on important issues. "In everything we do at the European Institute--our funding, our programs, our staff--we try to be half European and half American. We are very balanced and I consider myself the guarantor of this neutrality," she added. The Institute seeks to bridge the differences between Americans and Europeans and to strengthen the US-European relationship. It tries to anticipate important issues that will arise between Europe and the U.S. and encourage quiet, informal discussions to resolve them before they erupt into a crisis.
And if a transatlantic crisis does break out, the Institute is willing to serve as a neutral forum to discuss the dispute and settle the outstanding issues. "We serve as an early warning system and, when needed, as a conflict resolution center. We try to work informally and we've found that because of the freedom that people have in these meetings, their margin of maneuver is a little bit larger," she said. "Often the most interesting moment during our meetings are the silences. This is a time when people are really considering their positions. This is a key moment when you can see that people are really rethinking their positions and something important is going on," she added.
In its regular work, the European Institute organizes briefings, working groups, seminars, roundtable discussions, and conferences and also conducts long-term policy projects. It's an independent forum for business leaders, government officials, journalists, academics and policy experts to discuss pertinent policy matters. The Institute sponsors programs that consider such topics as financial services and the implementation of the euro; trade and investment; competition and industry alliances; energy and the environment; multimedia and telecommunications; aeronautics and space; defense and procurement policies; transatlantic regulatory convergence; integration of Central European nations into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and transatlantic relations with Asia and Latin America.
The Institute has become a venue for American and European leaders to make policy addresses. For example, the current President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, sketched out his agenda during a policy speech at the Institute during his first official visit to Washington.
The Institute has also begun publishing a quarterly journal, European Affairs, that serves as a forum for leading Americans and Europeans to discuss policies and to showcase the findings of recent Institute meetings.
Grapin says a big part of the Institute's work is helping Americans and Europeans better understand each other:
She said the strong bonds that once joined the two are loosening as World War II generation fades from the scene and a new generation comes to power with fewer feelings of transatlantic kinship. "The new generation, which hasn't gone through the World War II, doesn't have the same intuitive belief that we should stick together. For the new generation what we need to do is to demonstrate rationally that it makes more sense for the United States and Europe to stick together," she said.
The Institute also seeks to bridge cultural differences between Americans and Europeans. "We like each other. We've known each other for a long time. We look more or less alike. So we don't realize the extent of our differences. But our differences are very deep in terms of our traditional behavior, our institutional histories, in certain of our reactions to things. Americans and Europeans tend to think the other is the same. But we are not the same. While having very common interests and fundamentally common values and common backgrounds, Americans and Europeans are very different," she said.
"One of our main functions at the Institute is to help people translate English into English. Everyone speaks English but they don't always mean the same thing with the same words," she added. The inspiration for creating the Institute was sparked by a conversation Grapin had in 1988 with Jacques Delors, then the President of the European Commission and one of the leading architects of European integration.
Grapin; then a Washington correspondent for Le Figaro, was in Paris for a short visit and spoke with Delors at a dinner party. Delors asked Grapin about the mood in Washington and the U.S.'s perception about developments in Europe. She told him that Americans tended to view European integration, when they thought about it at all, with suspicion, even alarm. She said Americans feared Europe was intent on erecting a fortress to keep out the rest of the world.
Troubled by this perception, Delors and Grapin talked about creating an institution to provide accurate information about developments in both Europe and America and to serve as a forum to discuss issues.
"We thought there was the need for an institution that would be independent, that would not be European or American, but would be half and half," she said.
"We thought it would help the two capital cities to discuss matters of mutual interest, mostly with regard to European integration and transatlantic relations," Grapin added.
Grapin returned to Washington and fleshed out the idea of the Institute and raised funds. The following year Delors came to Washington to inaugurate the Institute. It has been going strong ever since. Grapin now has a staff of about 15 also evenly divided between Americans and Europeans and an annual budget of about $1.5 million.
She notes that Americans tend to be wary of projects that are subsidized by government, while Europeans take organizations more seriously when governments are involved in them..
"So we needed to have governments involved but not too much. And we needed to have the private sector participate at least in an important role," she said.
About half of its funds come from the private sector and of these, about half come from American firms and half from European firms.
Twenty percent of the Institute's budget comes from 24 European governments and about 10% from the European Commission which contributes on a program-by-program basis. Foundations and individual members also provide contributions. Several U.S. government agencies, such as the State and Defense departments, fund specific initiatives.
For example, the Institute set up the Transatlantic Partnership Working Group in cooperation with State Department. This group meets prior to the annual summit between the U.S.-EU to review key issues.
The Institute organized about 50 meetings last year and is scheduled to hold about the same number in 2000. In 1999, the Institute also sponsored a series of private dinners with ambassadors.
The Institute has developed a forum on Triangular Relations among U.S., Europe and Asia and a forum on the Inter-Regional Relationship involving the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
Determined to be on the cutting edge of commercial issues, the Institute has a series of programs on what it calls Millenium Industries. These include aeronautics and space, multimedia and telecommunications, food and biotechnology, energy, environment and transportation.
Grapin is especially proud of the Institute's role in introducing Americans to Europe's efforts to create an economic and monetary union and to issue a single currency.
She notes the Institute first held a conference on this topic in the early 1990s when most Americans--and a lot of Europeans--dismissed EMU as an impossible dream.
"At first everyone was very skeptical. They kept saying why are you holding these meetings. Economic and monetary union is never going to happen," she recalled. But to the surprise of many, the euro was launched in January, 1999. "It was successfully done and this is remarkable given the complexity of an operation that involved 11 countries. It has credibility," she said.
She notes that at the end of 2001 all national currencies of the participating countries will be scrapped and the euro will become the currency of the continent. The Institute will continue to hold seminars twice a year on monetary and financial affairs. The Institute has held its meetings on EMU in Washington and New York, but also in others cities. Last year, for example, events were also held in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Philadelphia.
This year the Institute will hold a special conference on the euro and the so-called New Economy. Grapin brings to the Institute a strong background in economics and journalism and solid expertise in European integration and transatlantic economic and strategic issues.
A native of Paris, she holds degrees in political science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, in business management from HEC, Paris, in law from Paris I, and in strategic studies from the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale.
She was an economic editor and staff writer for Le Monde (1967-81), director general of Interavia Publishing Group in Geneva (1981-85) and economic correspondent in the U.S. for Le Figaro (1987-94). She was also editor-in-chief of Europa, a joint publication of Le Monde, Times of London, Die Welt and La Stampa from 1977 through 1981.
Grapin is the author of several books on political and economic issues: La Guerre Civile Mondiale (1977), Radioscopie des Etats Unis (1980), Forteresse America (1984) and Pacific America (1988).
While determined to be a neutral arbiter, Grapin supports the direction Europe is heading. She said the European Union's progress, while halting at times, has been remarkable.
"When you look retrospectively at what has been done in the last ten years, the historical movement is just amazing," she said, citing the creation of a single market, efforts to forge an economic and monetary union and an ambitious plan to develop a common foreign and security policy. She notes the EU has managed to grow from six nation to the current 15 and believes it should be able to expand to 25 or 28 nations to include the new democracies of Eastern and Central Europe.
Grapin argues the EU is working simultaneously to expand and reform its governing institutions.
"The two processes--deepening and enlarging--are parallel and complementary. But there is also a certain tension between the two. But it's very clear that it's absolutely necessary to enlarge the European Community to the countries of Central Europe provided they meet the (admission) criteria," she said.
Grapin is convinced that European integration will continue."I think this an irreversible process. We have to do both--deepening and enlarging--and will do both for one very good reason. We have absolutely no choice. It will happen. I think the integration of European institutions is irreversible and inevitable," she said.
And she believes that as this integration and expansion continues, the Institute will play a crucial role in providing information to Washington. One of her central goals is to highlight the common goals of Europe and the United States.
"The European integration process is not meant to take place against the United States. It is meant to take place with the United States. In many areas, when the U.S. and Europe stick together they get what they want. But when they don't, they generally don't achieve very much," she said.
Grapin notes that two way trade between the U.S. and EU last year was about $350 billion and each has direct investment in the other of about $400 billion.
"The fundamental truth is that we are each other's most important ally and best and most important trading partners. But because we are such important partners we have areas of disagreement," she said.
"Overall this relationship is very balanced. It's a good exchange for both sides," she added.
While Europeans can learn much from the U.S.'s economic vitality, she believes Americans can learn from the ability of European political leaders to work together. "For the last 50 years, Europeans have been trained to negotiate together, to build this integration process. Now in the European Union, everything is based on compromise. Compromise is the way to solve problems," she said.
Looking ahead, Grapin sees no shortage of projects or challenges for the Institute as Europe and the U.S. increasingly deal with each other as equals and Americans seek to better understand how the EU works. "I believe the transatlantic relationship is the most important in the world," she said.
"And the European Union is a growth industry. The integration process will only intensify and its not very well understood. There will be more opportunities to explain it," she said.
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