Is the Transatlantic Economic Dialogue beside the Point? Jean-Marie Paugam, Policy Paper, No. 6, Paris, Ifri, December 2003

Transatlantic trade and investments are intense and the two economies narrowly interlinked. Yet the Transatlantic Economic Dialogue built since the end of the cold war, through regular summit meetings of the US President and the EU Presidencies, seems to be running out of steam and fails to mobilize public opinions and their elected representatives.

The 1990 Transatlantic Declaration and the 1995 'New Transatlantic Agenda' created a complex institutional architecture for dialogue, associating civil society representatives. The aim of this architecture was to seal, through the economy, the strategic alliance between the EU and the USA, to strengthen the community of values, deepen economic exchanges between the two sides, and to cooperate for the better prosperity of an open world economy, ruled within the multilateral trading system.

Trade policy has rapidly borne a central responsibility within this global partnership. However, the dream of a 'Transatlantic Community' rooted in free-trade and regulatory convergence has so far proved a dead-end. Cancun may indeed have shed light on the intrinsic flaws of Transatlantic cooperation and their impact on the multilateral system. The Economic Partnership could not oppose the continental drift. During the last decade, the divergence of economic growth models contributed to the staggering of the cooperation and intensification of trade disputes which have de facto monopolized the Transatlantic Agenda.

These disputes are still overshadowing the agenda as illustrated by the fact that the UE is still contemplating trade sanctions against the United States. The Bush Administration has shown itself as a 'selective multilateralist' and it does not hesitate to use protectionist instruments. The euro/dollar parity is also under threat. These factors could lead the Transatlantic Relations to enter into significant turbulence, that would affect both the partners and the world economy.

Against this background, various proposals have been tabled in favor of restoring the Economic Partnership, including by relaunching the project of a Free-Trade Agreement between the two shores.

Restoring the Partnership is certainly very necessary. Nonetheless, the major obstacles impeding a bilateral free-trade agreement look intact for the day. Updating the Transatlantic Economic Dialogue may require to step back to its original inspiration of the 1995 agenda, focused on joint responsibility in the world economy, instead of searching the 'grand soir' of transatlantic free trade or the regulatory 'big-bang' that would harmonize the two systems. Such an endeavor should focus on the ways and means of fostering a pragmatic dialogue on key global economic topics that are today subjects of shared concerns but rival strategies: the participation of Central Banks to a monetary dialogue, after the successful launch of the Euro; integrating developing countries into the world economy; adverse impacts of globalization on domestic employment and labor standards, are the controversial, yet indispensable, subjects of a partnership living up to its ambition by coming back to the point.