US-EU summit likely to be postponed

(MADRID) - A US-EU summit planned for May will almost certainly be postponed after the White House said President Barack Obama had no plans to travel to Spain to attend, a Spanish government source said Tuesday.

"It's still not clear. It depends on our discussions with Brussels," the source said.

"But these summits take place at the level of heads of state or government and with the situation as it is, it is very unlikely that this summit will take place. There is little room for manoeuvre."

However the "final decision" on its postponement "will be taken in collaboration with the European institutions, in particular with the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy," the source said.

Spain holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

The White House said Monday that Obama had "no plans" to travel to Spain for the May 24-25 summit, after a year of frenzied foreign travel in his first year in office.

"We are still working through the president's travel schedule for the rest of the year and will make announcements on trips and summits when those are set," US National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said.

There have been signs in Washington that Obama, who is facing a tough time implementing his sweeping reform agenda, will spend more time this year on home soil on domestic issues and politics.

Spain's centre-right newspaper El Mundo, quoting US sources, said Tuesday that Obama was unhappy with the last US-EU summit, in Washington in November, which "dampened his desire for another meeting in May."

"There were so many voices and so little results that the president (Obama) cut short the meeting and sent Vice President Joe Biden to an official meal," the paper said.

"Obama turns his back on Europe," was the headline in the centre-left daily El Pais.

It said that the US president would prefer that the US-EU summit coincided with the NATO summit planned in Lisbon in November.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said last month that Madrid wanted to forge a closer relationship between the European Union and the United States during its EU presidency.

"The United States must take a strategic perspective with regard to their closest allies, who are European," he said. "The two great Western blocs must manage to respond to a changing world."