EU bids to resolve trade regulation row with US

The EU is launching an initiative to overcome regulatory differences that have soured trading relations between Europe and the US, the Republic's biggest export market.

Brussels will table new proposals on Wednesday recommending the launch of a regulatory partnership and the appointment of high-profile regulatory co-operation enforcers by Washington and Brussels.

It is proposing that the enforcers will work as advisers to the White House and the president of the European Commission.

The move comes ahead of an EU-Washington summit scheduled for next month. The proposals are the result of a recent study that involved interviewing chief executives and academics in Europe and the US.

The US is one of the Republic's key trading partners. It buys 20 per cent of all goods and services exported from the State, and is one of the main sources of inward foreign direct investment.

The study also suggests establishing early warning systems in the regulatory and legislative processes to identify draft rules that could lead to transatlantic tensions.

The proposals reflect concerns that transatlantic trade negotiations need a new impetus since most of the transatlantic tariff-reduction work has been completed.

But the relationship has been overshadowed by high-profile disputes such as the row over aircraft subsidies to Boeing and Airbus, which affect only about 2 per cent of the EU-US trade flow but have created serious tensions between the two trading partners.

Lack of regulatory convergence has also had a knock-on effect on other aspects of transatlantic co-operation, according to the study. The transatlantic business dialogue, which was set up in 1995 as a forum for leading chief executives from Europe and the US, has been running out of steam and was nearly disbanded a year ago.

The study contrasts the greater degree of co-operation in some political areas, such as the fight against terrorism under the impulse of the US Department of Homeland Security, with signs of "negotiating fatigue" on the economic front.

It underlines what it calls the "sharply paradoxical" nature of the transatlantic relationship, namely that the EU-US economic policy agenda is stalled, while the economic relationship between Europe and America is thriving, amounting to an annual trade volume of goods and services of about $770 billion (€601 billion). - (Financial Times Service)