I just found this in the financial times.
[begin quote]: "At the urging of the chief executives, the US and the EU plan a renewed push this week to implement a mutual recognition agreement that would make it easier for companies to meet product safety specifications in both the US and Europe. Businesses say such streamlining could shave more than $1bn in costs on transatlantic trade." [end quote]
Does anybody know if this is only on the administrative level or does this also include a "streamlining" (probably down to the lowest common denominator) of product safety ?
Burghard Ilge
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for completeness here the full article:
By Edward Alden in Cincinnati Published: November 19 2000
European and US government and business leaders sought at the weekend to revitalise their troubled bilateral trading relationship, but acknowledged that growing public concern over trade liberalisation is stifling further progress.
The high-level meeting of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue took place as protesters battled police outside a downtown Cincinnati hotel.
The demonstrations were the first in the six-year history of the TABD, but have become a familiar backdrop to international trade meetings since the violent protests at last year's failed World Trade Organisation ministerial in Seattle. More than 100 police in full riot gear, about a dozen of them on horseback, ringed the hotel for the two-day meeting, and 47 protestors were arrested in largely peaceful demonstrations.
The protests have clearly rattled the confidence of both political and business leaders, who spent much of the two days debating how better to sell to the public the benefits of freer trade.
"Everybody is more risk-averse than a few years ago," said Bertrand Collomb, chief executive of Lafarge and European co-chair of the TABD. "They are being watched by public opinion much more."
George David, chief executive of United Technologies and the US co-chair, said "we would be foolish to fail to listen to these demonstrators and their views".
In the final communique, the TABD said it must work with non-governmental organisations and citizens' groups "out of the conviction that globalisation is not incompatible with their concerns". "We have a selling job," said Pascal Lamy, the EU's trade commissioner. "We need to find new ways of getting across the benefits of globalisation."
The fears over public reaction have already threatened one of the TABD's highest priorities. At the urging of the chief executives, the US and the EU plan a renewed push this week to implement a mutual recognition agreement that would make it easier for companies to meet product safety specifications in both the US and Europe. Businesses say such streamlining could shave more than $1bn in costs on transatlantic trade.
US regulatory agencies have been reluctant to allow European facilities to certify products as safe for the US market, bringing the talks to a stalemate.
One European official said that the US stance has been heavily influenced by the opponents of further trade liberalisation. "They are terrified of the NGOs, they are terrified of Public Citizen," he said, referring to the consumer group led by Ralph Nader.
The US in turn says progress on regulatory co-operation has been hampered by the European unwillingness to allow greater transparency and openness in its regulatory procedures to public scrutiny.
The chief executives also urged much greater caution in using the WTO's dispute settlement system, which has failed to resolve several contentious US-EU trade disputes and has stoked public fears of an international agency overriding national sovereignty.
While business groups were originally strong proponents of binding dispute settlement, the TABD urged the two governments to exhaust all negotiating possibilities before resorting to the WTO.