TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY – News Archive
January– June 2007

SEC sees mutual recognition of rules step by step
June 26, 2007
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A landmark move by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to accept the market rules of a foreign operator's country would be done on a selective basis first, a senior SEC official said on Tuesday. The SEC is reviewing how to allow banks, brokers and exchanges from the European Union and elsewhere to operate on the U.S. market more easily, without going through a full, cumbersome U.S. authorization process. The switch to so-called "mutual recognition" would mark a huge shift in how the SEC regulates its markets. Ties between the European Union and the United States financial markets have also deepened with a merger between pan-European bourse Euronext and the New York Stock Exchange. The introduction of mutual recognition by the SEC would have the same impact as the "open skies" agreement recently concluded between the European Union and the United States to open up the transatlantic airline market to more competition, a senior EU regulatory official said. Read More

NYSE has record volume on June 22
June 25, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Transatlantic exchange operator NYSE Euronext said on Monday that the Blackstone Group IPO and annual Russell index rebalancing pushed daily trading volume on its NYSE and NYSE Arca platforms to an all-time high of nearly 5.2 billion shares on June 22. The previous record was 4.1 billion shares traded on Feb. 27, NYSE Euronext said in a statement. Read More

EU, U.S. reach preliminary deal on SWIFT data
June 20, 2007
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU and the United States have reached a preliminary deal on how U.S. authorities can consult data from the international banking network SWIFT in anti-terror investigations, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday. EU and Belgian watchdogs said last year Brussels-based SWIFT broke privacy laws by letting the U.S. Treasury Department secretly consult its records in terrorism investigations after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. SWIFT, which handles global financial transfers, is a cooperative owned by roughly 7,800 financial institutions in the more than 200 countries that use it. It says it was bound to obey a U.S. subpoena to transfer the data. SWIFT announced last week it had decided to modify its messaging architecture to ensure that intra-European data be stored only in Europe, and not in the United States. It said it hoped that would allay data privacy concerns. Brussels and Washington are also in talks to replace an interim deal on the transfer to the United States of private data on transatlantic air passengers. Read More

US and EU agree "Single Market"
April 30, 2007
(BBC News) - The US and the EU have signed up to a new transatlantic economic partnership at a summit in Washington. The pact is designed to boost trade and investement by harmonising regulatory standards, laying the basis for a US-EU single market. The two sides also signed an Open Skies deal, designed to reduce fares and boost traffic on transatlantic flights. Read More

US and EU agree Transatlantic Marcket Pact
April 24, 2007
(BusinessWeek) -The EU and the US have agreed details of an economic pact to be signed off at a bilateral summit later this month, with common standards for companies and new posts to deal with transatlantic issues both in Washington and Brussels on the table. Read More

EU to Boost Sanctions Against U.S. Goods
April 24, 2007
(AP) - In relation for the U.S.'s anti-dumping policy, the EU will enact retaliatory sanctions on U.S. goods. The U.S. distributes some of the money collected from anti-dumping duties back to the companies who are protected, a practice declared illegal by the WTO in 2004. The EU will levie a 15% tax on some U.S. made goods including papers, pens, plastics, and portables homes. Read More

The EU and US Reach Agreement on Trans-Atlantic Economic Partnership
April 23, 2007
(Der Spiegel Online) - EU and US have reached agreement on a trans-Atlantic economic partnership, DER SPIEGEL has learned. The treaty would dismantle non-tariff barriers to trade and bring economic benefits for both sides. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has long been touting the benefits of closer trans-Atlantic cooperation. Now, the US and the European Union have come to an agreement which would work towards eliminating non-tariff barriers to trade. Read More

Unions Explore Transatlantic Merger
April 19, 2007
(FT) - The creation of the first transatlantic trade union moved a step closer yesterday when British and North American unions unveiled merger proposals. The aim of the 3m-member alliance would be to provide greater protection for workers whose jobs are threatened by the spread of global -capitalism. Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union, which will next month complete their own merger to create Britain's biggest trade union, Unite, with 2.1m members, have agreed to set in motion plans that they said could lead to a "legal merger" with the United Steelworkers union. The three unions, as a first step, have agreed to establish "a merger exploration committee". USW represents 850,000 workers in the US, Canada and the Caribbean in the steel, aluminium, glass and manufacturing sectors. Read More

McCreevy Speaks in Ireland on Transatlantic Financial Services Market
March 26, 2007
Speaking to a group of law makers and business leaders at the 8th annual Finance Dublin Conference in Dublin, Ireland, Charles McCreevy, the European Union's commissioner for internal market and services, spoke about the importance of the EU-US relationship in the financial services market. Read More

EU Governments Approve Open Skies Accord with U.S.
March 22, 2007
The European Union agreed to deregulate trans-Atlantic travel, endorsing an aviation treaty with the U.S. to spur competition, encourage mergers and end protection for British Airways Plc and American Airlines. Transport ministers approved an "open-skies'' accord allowing EU airlines to make U.S. flights from any of the bloc's nations instead of from just their home country. The deal will also scrap rules letting only British Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., American Airlines and United Airlines fly between the U.S. and London's Heathrow airport, Europe's busiest. A report released by the European Commission shows that the accord will result in an increase of 26 million transatlantic passengers, 72,000 new jobs, and a savings to consumers of $16 billion over the next five years. Read More

U.S. Treasury Aid Urges EU to Forge Single Market Out of 27
March 19, 2007
Robert Kimmitt, U.S. undersecretary of the treasury, spoke on the steps Europe needs to take in order to move closer towards the goal of a single transatlantic market by 2015. The U.S. would like to reduce the tendency to work through bilateral trade agreements with individual European countries. Thus Kimmitt's comments point to the need for Europe to make it possible for the U.S. to deal with one single economic entity. Differences in accounting standards, patent laws, environmental security, and laws governing hedge funds are hampering transatlantic trade. Experts say a lowering of trade barriers between the US and EU could increase trade by 3% the first year, resulting in more jobs and wealth on both sides of the Atlantic. Read More

McCreevy Sketches Out Closer EU-US Market Ties
March 7, 2007
In a speech given in New York, the European Union internal market commissioner, Charles McCreevy, outlined his principles for an integrated EU-US economic market. He outlined plans for integrated financial markets, common pools of liquidity, and shared safety and quality regulations. Lowering trade and market access barriers will result in an estimated 2-3% increase in transatlantic trade volume in the EU, and 1-2% in the US. The US-EU summit will take place in Washington, DC at the end of April, and the main topic of discussion will be deeper economic integration. Read More
Read McCreevy's speech
 
Europe, U.S. Forge "Open Skies" Act
March 2, 2007
EU and US negotiators, on 2 March 2007, inched closer to a long-sought deal on freeing-up air traffic between the two blocs – a move which the Commission says could create 80,000 jobs and generate €12 billion in economic benefits. The pursuit of an 'open skies' agreement, which would remove restrictions on transatlantic flights, has eluded the two sides since talks began in 2002. The agreement opens up airports in Europe and US to more airlines, greatly reducing airfare on transatlantic flights. However, it falls short or opening up US airlines to European investment, still capped at 25%. The European Commission and the US Department of Transportation have issued statements of support of the agreement. Read More

Europeans Propose Single Market
February 8, 2007
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed a plan to create a single unified marketplace between the US and the EU. Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner for Internal Markets has also backed the idea, according to Reuters and the DPA. The plan focuses on standardizing international law between the US and the EU in order to increase global investment and trade. The US and the EU trade about $1.7 billion a day. Officials estimate that the plan could increase EU GDP by up to 3.5 percent and US GDP by up to 3 percent. European officials believe that if the plan is supported by the US , a united US-EU marketplace could be created by 2015. In 1998 a similar plan was proposed, however it was blocked by French opposition. Read More