By Lewis Crofts - 5th May 2004
Europe’s leading companies have joined forces with their US counterparts to call for a more responsible approach from policy makers in Brussels and Washington.
A flurry of trade spats over steel, tax laws, anti-dumping duties and foodstuffs are threatening to destabilise the world’s major trade axis.
“We are concerned that trade disputes, protectionist pressures, foreign policy and other differences particularly in the regulatory field are straining the transatlantic relationship at a time when cooperation is more necessary than ever,” they said in a joint statement.
UNICE, a group representing 16 million EU businesses, clubbed together with eight leading US groups – such as the National Foreign Trade Council and the European-American Business Council – in calling for more pragmatism from their political masters.
“Trade disputes should be resolved to the maximum extent possible through negotiations before resorting to the World Trade Organisation dispute settlement,” they continued.
“Efforts should seek to facilitate the convergence of positions and actions, prevent new tensions and eliminate existing ones.”
The EU-US trade relationship, worth a billion euros a day, has been plagued by bilateral spats as well as mud-slinging in the global forum.
Washington is ganging up on Europe’s policies on biotech crops, hormone beef and protected food names.
Meanwhile, Brussels is squaring up to the US over three pieces of anti-dumping legislation as well as illegal tax breaks.
This catalogue of ongoing trade rows is sullying the Trans-Atlantic trading waters, and judging by Thursday's reaction from industry, costing businesses dear.
These disputes have also revealed cracks in the unified front the two sides usually try to present at global trade negotiations.
The current round of WTO development talks have featured just as much EU-US name-calling as the usual face-offs between the developed and the developing worlds.
“We would like to see significant progress this year in the WTO Doha Development Agenda negotiations,” state the firms.
“We urge our respective negotiators to show leadership in bringing all WTO members’ positions closer together.”
Europe has maintained a hard-nosed trade policy, standing by disputed rules and its much-maligned agriculture policy.
Equally, the US has been slow in repealing legislation meant to render its tax laws and anti-dumping rules WTO-compliant.
The statement is addressed to leaders on both sides of the Atlantic in the hope that it will shape discussions at the EU-US summit on June 25-26 in Ireland.
The signatories include the following: Union of Industrial and Employer’s Confederations of Europe, Business Roundtable, Coalition of Service Industries, European-American Business Council, Emergency Committee for American Trade, National Association of Manufacturers, National Foreign Trade Council, Organisation for International Investments and the United States Council for International Business.
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