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 Home > News & Policies > February 2004

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.

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