The collapse of the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organisation in December 1999 was a blow to the EU, which had first proposed the idea of a "millennium round" of trade liberalisation.
The European Union's 'Headline Goal', agreed at the Helsinki Summit in December 1999, calls for the creation of a 60,000-strong rapid-reaction force by 2003. Turning that goal into reality is extremely difficult.
On each side of the Atlantic a new defence initiative is seen from the other side as unnecessary, confusing and worrying: the Europeans' plan for a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the Americans' plan for National Missile Defense (NMD).