Brittan attacks US for delaying trade accord

Date: 29/10/1998

By Peter Chapman

TRADE Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan has written to his US counterpart Charlene Barshefsky urging her to sort out an embarrassing last-minute hitch which threatens to wreck a key transatlantic trade deal to cut red tape.

The move follows Washington's admission that it should not have signed a bilateral deal with the EU in May to allow certified bodies in the Union and US to test each other's products for conformity with standards on either side of the Atlantic.

The accord covered a range of goods from medical devices and leisure craft to telecoms kit and electronics equipment. But the US Congress passed a law in November 1997 explicitly excluding some of the medical products covered by the transatlantic deal.

Washington has indicated that the accord, known as a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA), cannot go ahead in its present form, even though the US authorities have already offered to replace some of the barred goods with other medical products.

EU trade officials signalled last week that they were likely to accept these substitutes, but Washington says the Union must formally approve the amended MRA before it will implement the deal.

In his letter, Brittan warned the US trade representative that it would take months to complete the official paperwork needed to amend the MRA and obtain approval from the EU's 15 member states.

“It is not possible to change the text of an already ratified agreement in the matter of a few weeks,” he said, warning that unless a solution was found, the MRA would not enter into force before spring 1999.

Brittan said the matter was now becoming “most urgent”, adding: “During the different transitional periods, some as long as three years, our respective industries and consumers will reap only partially the benefits that we expect the MRA to produce.”

He is urging Washington to accept the existing deal without further ado, allowing the rest of it to go ahead as planned while officials complete the changes to the medical devices section.

“Any modifications to the text can and should be done after entry into force of the MRA,” he insisted.

Brittan also implies that the US' Federal Drug Administration may be contributing to uncertainty over the issue, claiming that various FDA officials have expressed doubts at conferences and meetings with industry over Washington's willingness to implement the pharmaceuticals sections of the MRA.

“It was disturbing to hear that the FDA made similar statements in recent congressional hearings,” said Brittan. “Just as disturbing were certain statements made by US representatives in a recent meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development trade committee working party that called into question the effective usefulness of the MRA.”