Coming soon: Luxemburger fries

A bizarre news conference following this year's US-EU summit, where Dubya met the European Union Commission and Council presidents, positions held this year by Bertie's man Jose Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker, who holds the rotating council presidency. This year's summit was in Washington and lacked the newsworthiness of last year's event at Dromoland castle: Dubya in his undies and a panting press corps, induced by those clever Irish protestors.

For once we don't blame Dubya for being a bit mystified as to what exactly this summit was supposed to accomplish, so he just went along with the air of constructiveness that his visitors wanted. But it's hard to sound too interested:

Q Mr. President ... Would you say that today, after the two summits between European Union and the United States, that the partnership has even become again a friendship between Europe and United States, and how you see the role of the Luxembourg presidency in that issue?

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... I think the friendship between our respective countries in the EU are strong. Obviously, there's been a difference of opinion recently on certain issues, but that doesn't prevent the American people from holding the good folks of Luxembourg or Portugal in high esteem ... In terms of your Prime Minister, he's an interesting guy. (Laughter.) He's a lot of fun to be around. He promotes serious business in a way that endears himself to people. And so I think his presidency has been an important presidency for the EU during difficult times, and he's handled it well. And I was going to say he's a piece of work, but that might not translate too well. Is that all right, if I call you a "piece of work"? (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT JUNCKER: Okay.

We'll have to take another look at Juncker's facial expression during that exchange but we don't know what Dubya was supposed to do with that question anyway. But maybe with even the dude who created Freedom Fries now disillusioned with the Iraq war, we could ease back towards French Fries via the good feelings of Americans towards Luxembourg (like Dubya says) with that country getting the appellation for a while.

On the more serious side, those watching for signals on the future of Gitmo will have noticed that (a) Dubya says the Red Cross already has an open invitation to monitor it ("And I believe we are, in Guantanamo. I mean, after all, there's 24 hour inspections by the International Red Cross."), (b) that the press now has an open invitation too ("I urge members of our press corps to go down to Guantanamo and see how they're treated and to see -- and to see -- and to look at the facts"), and (c) that he does see a decision point coming:

And -- seriously, take an objective look as to how these folks are treated, and what has happened to them in the past, and when the courts make the decision they make [about the hearing rights of Gitmo detainees], we'll act accordingly.

It's just, just possible that the 3.5 years of outcry is having an effect.

UPDATE: So somehow, this very short summit has suddenly generated 7 joint declarations/statements, one of which has two long subsections. Of course it's not possible that the three presidents got all this done in a couple of hours -- it was all done beforehand by civil servants. So why have the f*cking summit at all? And top this for bullsh*t:

We look to our senior levels of government to carry forward the tasks we have outlined in this Declaration. We encourage them to meet regularly with their transatlantic counterparts to establish work programs, review progress, and advance areas of cooperation we have agreed on today. These work programs should be developed in the next six months and include objectives and timelines to help measure progress. Those responsible will report to leaders at each U.S.-EU Summit on progress made under this initiative. Taking into account our strengthening global partnership, we will keep under continuous review the strategic priorities and structures of our dialogues to ensure they are fully adapted to meet the challenges ahead.

i.e. let's have more meetings. As they say in Private Eye, Trebles all round! (except that Dubya doesn't drink).

2ND UPDATE 23 JUNE: It looks the open invitation to Gitmo isn't quite so open:

[BBC]Investigators from the United Nations have accused the US of stalling over their repeated requests to visit detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
The US is holding hundreds of suspected members of the Taleban and al-Qaeda at the detention facility in Cuba. The UN said for over a year there had been no response to its requests to check on the condition of detainees.