Commission launches plan to boost EU-US trading bloc

By David Cronin

Date: 19/05/05

The European Commission published yesterday (18 May) a plan to boost EU-US trade and investment, designed to help both trading blocs respond to "ever sharper competitive pressures" from China and India.

The Commission plan concentrates on three areas: greater regulatory co-operation, closer working on research and development - including information and communication technologies and intellectual property enforcement - and co-ordinated work on security measures to allow trade and passengers to flow smoothly across borders.

The Commission paper asserts the importance of concluding the round of multilateral trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and rejects the idea of an EU-US Free Trade Agreement.

"Bilateral economic initiatives between the EU and the US should be complementary to the WTO process and address the main obstacles, which are essentially regulatory in nature," the document says.

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson referred to the cost burden on firms which have to conform with different laboratory test standards on both side of the Atlantic.

He also said that it remained possible to resolve the trade dispute over subsidies to aircraft giants Boeing and Airbus without a showdown at the WTO.

"Taking cases to the WTO is, in my view, not the appropriate way to deal with a dispute between two hugely successful companies for whom there is adequate room for both to prosper in the global market," he said.

An 11 April deadline for reaching an accord on state aid to the firms has passed without a deal.

The European Commission on 18 May 2005 published a plan to boost EU-US trade and investment, designed to help both trading blocs respond to 'ever sharper competitive pressures' from China and India. The Commission plan concentrated on three areas: greater regulatory co-operation, closer working on research and development - including information and communication technologies and intellectual property enforcement - and co-ordinated work on security measures to allow trade and passengers to flow smoothly across borders.