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Understanding this trend and enabling it to continue is the key to world political development
TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY – News Archive
July– December 2005
US, EU must make efforts to break trade deadlock
October 21,2005
PARIS (AFX) - The United States and the European Union must each make further efforts to push forward negotiations on agriculture at the World Trade Organization, WTO director general Pascal Lamy said on France 's LCI television. (...) Referring to deadlock at WTO talks in Geneva in the Doha Round of trade liberalisation, essentially over agriculture, he said that such efforts by the US and EU 'will do much to reduce tension among developing countries which want to see trade opened up' and 'things will go rather better'. 'It is not the United States which is pushing Europe in one direction or another, but all developing countries which are pushing the United States and Europe to open their markets a little and to cease subsidising exports, for example,' Lamy said. Read More
Europe 's finance ministers on Tuesday called for closer ties with the US in order to boost economic growth
October 11, 2005
UK finance minister Gordon Brown, who chaired the Luxembourg meeting of finance ministers for EU presidency, insisted more needed to be done. “We have underestimated the importance of what can be achieved by reducing barriers to competition between the EU and the US ,” he said. “In particular, we need to look at removing non-tariff barriers to trade, and this will be one of the key priorities of next year’s EU-US summit.” Brown said the ministers had discussed a joint proposal from the UK , Austria and Finland to strengthen the trans-Atlantic economic relationship. “The market in goods and services between the EU and the US is worth $600 billion, and there are some 14 million employed in sectors directly related to trade between the two blocs,” said Brown. He said Europe would in particular seek to work more closely with the US on regulating financial services and opening up trade and investment. ... Read More
EU/US table new trade offers
October 11, 2005
Brussels and Washington have tabled fresh proposals for further liberalisation of agricultural markets in an attempt to inject new life into the stalled world trade talks. ... The US plan also calls for the elimination of all export subsidies by 2010 – the same year as recently advocated by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Read More
Deep Integration: How Transatlantic Markets are leading Globalisation
13 September 2005 (CEPS)
Speakers: James Elles, MEP, European Parliament
Dan Hamilton, Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University
Karel Lannoo, Chief Executive, CEPS
Robert G. Liberatore, Group Senior Vice President, Global External Affairs & Public Policy, DaimlerChrysler AG
John Sammis, Economic Minister Counsellor , US Mission to the EU
Gunnar Wiegand, Head of Unit, Relations with United States & Canada , European Commission.
Chair: Staffan Jerneck, Director, Director of Corporate Relations, CEPS
On September 13, CEPS hosted the launch of a study on transatlantic economy, titled Deep Integration: How Transatlantic Markets are leading Globalization, which was recently published jointly with John Hopkins University . Dan Hamilton, Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University , began the panel discussion of this study by discussing three common myths or misconceptions of transatlantic relations: that globalization is about cheep labor and outsourcing; that international commerce is only about trade; and that transatlantic commerce is on the verge of a “divorce”.
This set the stage nicely for discussing what the statistics in this study actually represent. The first point that Mr. Hamilton made was that by any objective measure, by far the deepest or thickest cross-boarder interactions which happen today are across the Atlantic (surpassing relations with ex. China ). Mr. Hamilton also clarified that trade is only a marginal part ( 20 per cent) of international commerce. Affiliate sales, not trade, is the way in which Europe delivers goods and services to America , and 56 per cent of the total output of US affiliates comes from Europe . As to the misconception that transatlantic relations are on the verge of a “divorce”, Hamilton explained the tensions as being due to the fact that the EU and US are literally “in each others business”. Far from diverging from their relationship, conflicts arise exactly because differing systems are constantly coming into contact, and grinding up against each other.
The solution to present conflict, which was reiterated by all members of the panel, was that policies need to be harmonized, and markets need to be opened. This was identified as a method to promote further deepening of transatlantic relations, and growth of economies in both the EU and United States . The area of services was identified as one driving force in transatlantic economy which is currently defined as “a sleeping giant” where many inroads could be made in terms of harmonization and growth. ... Read More
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