Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-16-Speech-3-356-000"
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"Madam President, in the absence of Catherine Ashton, I have the pleasure of informing you on the state of play of the EU-US Summit. I will also cover the Transatlantic Economic Council, which I chair, and which this year takes place back-to-back with the Summit. We expect the Summit to send a strong signal, reasserting the great depth and breadth of the EU-US partnership, based on common values, which is particularly important at a time when gloomy economic times have taken hold on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world more generally.
The Summit will also focus, as I said, on expanding the economic benefits of the transatlantic economy. As regards the Transatlantic European Council, the TEC, I very much welcome most of the ideas expressed in the resolution.
I fully agree with you that there is – now more then ever – an urgent need for closer economic cooperation between the EU and the United States to help our economies out of the crisis. The strategic and political impulse provided by the TEC process is key in this respect. While it will not provide an immediate remedy for acute economic problems, it is the prime vehicle for the EU and the US to promote further integration of the transatlantic marketplace.
As outlined in the resolution, regulatory coherence is a key objective of our cooperation in the TEC, especially in new areas such as nanotechnology and cloud computing, or promising economic sectors such as electric vehicles, in order to create a favourable environment for growth and jobs.
The TEC has had a productive year since its last meeting. At the 29 November TEC meeting in Washington, we expect to demonstrate good results in a number of important economic sectors, including e-mobility, secure trade, the information and communication technology services sector, and basic industries (raw materials).
US TEC co-Chair Michael Froman and I will provide a joint report to the Summit and we expect Summit leaders to identify, and give us direction on, the main forward-looking priorities for transatlantic cooperation. We will also seek to present a strategy on how to promote the joint ICT regulatory principles with third countries and take a renewed commitment on our transatlantic investment cooperation.
In my view, the TEC should put its weight behind a few high-profile issues, showing our capacity to work together and set benchmarks at global level. Success breeds success: if our ‘flagship’ projects work – for example, our cooperation on electric cars – they can serve as a model for other areas. I rely on you to convey this message to European standard-setting organisations.
The TEC’s role is to further develop the enormous potential of the transatlantic marketplace. This is all the more important in times of economic crisis and financial market instability, to counter protectionist reflexes. But the TEC will not be able meet its objectives without the support of legislators. The vital motor of convergence will be your cooperation with the US Congress on key issues of transatlantic interest. I therefore welcome the decision by the Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue (TLD) to initiate cooperation between committee chairs on both sides of the Atlantic in three central areas: financial services, transport security and agriculture (food safety). I am also looking forward to meeting members of the TLD Steering Group next week, on 21 November, to discuss other key areas of common interest which are mentioned in your resolution.
Let me tell you why I think the TEC is so important. The EU and the US are the world’s most integrated economies. We are each other’s largest trade and investment partners. We share common values and responsibilities for tackling global challenges on a variety of issues, be it innovation and environmental challenges, energy security or access to raw materials. That is why we need to think together about how the transatlantic marketplace should look in 2020.
The Summit will also address the global challenges we are facing together: climate change will be in focus again in the run-up to the 17th Conference of Parties in Durban. There is deep concern amongst our citizens about the impact of global climate change. Durban will be an important opportunity to make progress on shaping multilateral action to combat climate change. The Summit must send a message that the EU and US will work together to put decisions taken at Cancun last year into operation and ensure that Durban is a success.
One cannot talk about climate change, the economy or foreign policy without talking about energy. With a growing global population and a finite supply of fossil fuels, energy security is a vital concern. Given the supply shocks of the past year and the fragility of economic recovery, we will engage the US further on a joint agenda of work with a view both to increasing our energy interdependence and to promoting green growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Parliament is an active contributor to the development of EU-US relations, as we can judge from the reports and resolutions on transatlantic relations, the delegations travelling to the US and the many high-level visitors from the United States that are welcomed in this House.
On development, the EU and the US are the world’s leading aid donors. However, the current climate of austerity, where we have to do more with less, underlines more than ever the need for complementarity and increased attention to aid effectiveness. We need to work closely on coordinating our efforts in recipient countries so as to maximise the effectiveness and impact of our aid and avoid duplication of effort. We will also seek to build on existing work in the EU-US development dialogue on food security, climate change and the MDGs, especially health. As the Summit will take place on the eve of the High-Level Conference in Busan, a positive message on aid effectiveness could not be more timely.
The US is our global partner also in CFSP and CSDP. On the foreign policy side, the ‘Arab Spring’ is an obvious area of focus. We will continue our close coordination and seek to maximise our joint impact on the ground. We also must support the Middle East peace process, with the aim of achieving a framework for agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. On Iran and Syria, the EU has delivered on tougher sanctions while stressing that we remain committed to engagement on the right terms. Iran’s nuclear programme remains a concern. We are consulting internally, and with our partners, to work on an appropriate reaction by the IAEA Board of Governors to the new report.
We will look towards Europe’s East as well. In Belarus, developments during September – notably the release of 25 political prisoners – were going in the right direction. The ‘mending of fences’ with the West now seems to have come to an abrupt halt. Instead, the regime is increasingly tightening the screws on civil society and the political opposition. EU-US cooperation on Belarus has been excellent and should continue. We will coordinate our messages and policies to get maximum impact, where possible. Also, in the case of Ukraine, the US and EU have worked very well together on pushing the path of reform and will continue to do so. We need to build on things that work even more.
As for security and defence, on 18 May this year, during her visit to Washington, Catherine Ashton signed with Secretary Clinton the Framework Participation Agreement to facilitate future US engagement in the EU’s CSDP missions. This is a major step in the right direction, especially at times when the pooling of resources is essential. As a consequence, our cooperation in the field of crisis management has been further increased, and nowadays around 60 American citizens already serve in our CSDP civilian missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. This is clear evidence that the EU is taking the lead and is regarded as a global partner.
On domestic security, recognising that fundamental rights and the security of citizens are complementary and mutually reinforcing, we need to ensure that there is a good balance between the two in all of our work. The EU and US must also reinforce our work together to tackle new threats to the global networks, such as cyber attacks and cyber crime, in a more comprehensive way.
We are also determined to finalise in 2012 negotiations on a comprehensive EU-US data protection agreement that provides a high level of protection for all our citizens and thereby facilitates the exchange of data needed for law enforcement purposes.
Overall, the Summit must affirm the continued importance of a modern and forward-looking EU-US relationship in an increasingly multi-polar world. I look forward to the debate that will now follow.
The EU and the US economies are still suffering, with pessimistic forecasts for 2012 growth and unemployment levels. Therefore, the economy and the need for jobs and growth will be at the heart of this Summit. We will start by reviewing relevant results of the G20 Summit, and will discuss our respective contributions to a sustainable and balanced global recovery.
The 2008 financial crisis in the US, and now the euro area crisis, have demonstrated how deeply the EU and US economies are interdependent, and that we need to support each others’ efforts to resolve the economic crisis. At the Summit, EU and US leaders must convey confidence in economic governance on both sides of the Atlantic. They will also seek a renewed impetus to transatlantic efforts to boost jobs and growth.
During the discussions we want to ensure that we look at all the critical economic issues beyond the euro area crisis. We are doing our homework. So far, President Obama is supporting EU efforts, and we trust that this support will continue.
However, having the euro area house in order is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for global growth. One should not forget that the EU is not contributing to global imbalances: the EU has no large current account deficits, continues to have low inflation and has generally lower debt levels than some of our major trading partners, and the euro area has an exchange rate which is driven by market forces.
As the crisis is global, nobody can bear the full burden of the solution on their own, neither the EU nor any other economy. At the Summit we will ask the US to play its part too. We welcome the US commitment at the G20 to pursue fiscal consolidation.
Financial regulation reform remains at the core of sustainable and balanced growth. A lot has been done on both sides of the Atlantic, but further work is needed, and we need to ensure that what has been decided is implemented effectively. Again, Europe is doing its homework by implementing rules on bank bonuses and Basel III swiftly.
In the light of the G20 outcome, we also want the Summit to underline the need for the EU and US to rally behind the multilateral trading system, to resist protectionism at home and abroad, and to ensure that we both go to the Geneva WTO Ministerial Conference in December with the will to make progress wherever possible with a fresh approach to the Doha Development Agenda mandate."@en1
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"Member of the Commission, on behalf of the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy"1
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