Monday, March 19, 2007
EU and US to begin single market push
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March 19, 2007
The European Union and the US will next month start an ambitious initiative to harmonise regulations, norms and technical standards in up to 40 economic and industrial sectors, laying the cornerstone for a single market between the two regions.
The pledge is the central item in the draft agenda of the April 30 EU-US summit in Washington, a senior German government official told the Financial Times. The summit will mark the official launch of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's initiative for a transatlantic economic partnership which aims to abolish non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the world's two richest regions.
Although the summit will only mark the start of the initiative, negotiators are hopeful that they can sign a long-delayed "open sky" agreement, which would create a unified civil aviation market between the two regions.
The three dozen other sectors to be given priority range from the automotive industry, where regulatory incompatibilities are responsible for 10 per centof the cost of developingand producing new cars,to biofuels and renewable energies.
"India, China and others are setting us a new competitive challenge. They will continue to do so and develop their own know-how," Ms Merkel told an EU-US conference in Berlin yesterday.
"This is why we must join forces . . . Whoever sets the norms today will secure the markets of tomorrow."
Ms Merkel, who has sought to mend Germany's frayed relationship with Washington since entering office 18 months ago, has put the transatlantic economic partnership high on the list of priorities for Berlin's presidency of the EU, which ends in June.
The April summit will also identify "lighthouse" pro-jects where negotiators think harmonisation can be achieved over the next 12 months, or which would bring fast and tangible benefits to consumers.
The summit would create discrete "sectoral dialogues" under the oversight of "four to six eminent persons", who would maintain political pressure on national regulators and business representatives to deliver and report on the progress at next year's summit.
These "ambassadors", or "chaperones", could be cabinet ministers, former government officials or parliamentarians with political authority and privileged access to the groups and institutions involved.
One name being floated on the EU side, although he has not yet been approached, is Mario Monti, the former EU commissioner and current president of Milan's Bocconi University.
¶ 4:35 PM The European Union and the US will next month start an ambitious initiative to harmonise regulations, norms and technical standards in up to 40 economic and industrial sectors, laying the cornerstone for a single market between the two regions.
The pledge is the central item in the draft agenda of the April 30 EU-US summit in Washington, a senior German government official told the Financial Times. The summit will mark the official launch of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's initiative for a transatlantic economic partnership which aims to abolish non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the world's two richest regions.
Although the summit will only mark the start of the initiative, negotiators are hopeful that they can sign a long-delayed "open sky" agreement, which would create a unified civil aviation market between the two regions.
The three dozen other sectors to be given priority range from the automotive industry, where regulatory incompatibilities are responsible for 10 per centof the cost of developingand producing new cars,to biofuels and renewable energies.
"India, China and others are setting us a new competitive challenge. They will continue to do so and develop their own know-how," Ms Merkel told an EU-US conference in Berlin yesterday.
"This is why we must join forces . . . Whoever sets the norms today will secure the markets of tomorrow."
Ms Merkel, who has sought to mend Germany's frayed relationship with Washington since entering office 18 months ago, has put the transatlantic economic partnership high on the list of priorities for Berlin's presidency of the EU, which ends in June.
The April summit will also identify "lighthouse" pro-jects where negotiators think harmonisation can be achieved over the next 12 months, or which would bring fast and tangible benefits to consumers.
The summit would create discrete "sectoral dialogues" under the oversight of "four to six eminent persons", who would maintain political pressure on national regulators and business representatives to deliver and report on the progress at next year's summit.
These "ambassadors", or "chaperones", could be cabinet ministers, former government officials or parliamentarians with political authority and privileged access to the groups and institutions involved.
One name being floated on the EU side, although he has not yet been approached, is Mario Monti, the former EU commissioner and current president of Milan's Bocconi University.
