by Anthony Luzzatto Gardner
24 June 2021
On 3 March 2014, Anthony Luzzatto Gardner arrived in Brussels as the newly-appointed United States Ambassador to the European Union, a post he would hold for just under three years. Drawing on his experience, he has written Stars with Stripes, a memoir and an exhaustive and detailed account, analysis and exploration of the longstanding diplomatic relationship between the US and the EU.
In Stars with Stripes, Gardner sets out an impassioned case for a closer partnership between the US and the EU and for a strong, united Europe.
Gardner begins his account by noting the drastic difference in attitudes he witnessed between his time working a young trainee in the European Commission in the early 1990s – a period characterised by a prevailing sense of optimism over the future of the European project – and his time as an ambassador from early 2014, a period marked by the escalation in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, the growing threat of terrorism and the fresh scars of the Eurozone crisis, which all contributed to an underlying sense of malaise and pessimism.
Gardner firstly gives an overview of his life and education, explaining how his affinity with and interest in Europe is, at least, partly attributable to his Italian roots. As the book progresses, he writes about various policy issues, interweaving his descriptions with personal accounts and stories, some of which veer on the edge of outright comedy. He also comments, largely critically, on President Donald Trump’s protectionist attitudes and on the ways in which Trump either departed from, or maintained, the course taken during Obama’s presidency.
The next three sections of the book are devoted to the areas, or “ties”, which bind the US and the EU: economic and security-related ties, and shared environmental concerns on how to “save the planet”. As regards the first of these, he dedicates a chapter to the issue of trade, in which he discusses the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – the ambitious proposal for a free trade agreement between the US and the EU. He expresses his frustration over the lack of progress in negotiations, and concludes by giving his personal take on how the TTIP can only succeed with: a greater degree of political will on the US side; public support within EU Member States; and clear communication from both the US and the EU. In this context, he makes specific recommendations for both the US and the EU camps.
On the other hand, Gardner notes the greater degree of cooperation in the areas of data privacy and the digital economy. He comments on how the growing transatlantic rift over the first issue – partly due to a different cultural understanding of privacy in US and European contexts – was remedied by the establishment of the Privacy Shield framework and through a number of US reforms from 2013 to 2015. He explains, too, how both the US and the EU share similar approaches on how to regulate the rapidly evolving technological sphere.
In the section on security ties, Gardner focuses on the US and EU sanctions against Iran and Russia. He argues that, in the absence of transatlantic cooperation, it is likely that Moscow would have been even more insistent in its approach. He also discusses his own contribution to the US’s efforts to strengthen the EU’s energy security. In the same section, he explores issues related to military security and law enforcement.
His final section is on the close US-EU collaboration on combatting climate change and on providing foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. Gardner concludes with an analysis of the failure of the Trump administration to see and understand the roots of European integration as a post-war peace project. Here, Gardner reaffirms the value of the transatlantic partnership in a challenging period of rising Euroscepticism and hard-right populism.
Stars with Stripes provides an invaluable insider perspective on the dynamics of diplomacy. It provides a revealing insight into the institutional machinery within the US and EU systems. Underpinning the narrative is Gardner’s hope for an ever-stronger EU and US relationship, and his analysis of why such a partnership is vital for both parties.
Anthony Luzzatto Gardner was the United States’ Ambassador to the European Union from 2014 to 2017.
Council users can access both the print and electronic version of the book via the online Eureka catalogue:
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