Trans-Atlantic Cooperation

Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been loudly proclaiming her determination to seek a global climate change deal, carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to be mentioned when she arrives in Washington Monday for one-to-one talks with President Bush.

Instead she'll be signing the new "open skies" agreement that will allow EU carriers to fly to any US city and vice versa, discussing the Middle East conflict, Iran's nuclear program, and how to lower barriers to transatlantic investment.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU is still keen to press Washington to curb greenhouse gas emissions but "deliverable" results at the meeting would be more likely in areas such as aviation and economic integration.

"To be honest, now we are concentrating more on the global agenda for the transatlantic marketplace because we saw that there was more potential to achieve results in this summit there than in the other issue," he told Reuters news agency. "But this also helps the other part of the agenda, and we certainly will keep the debate on climate change as one of our main topics with our American partners."

Getting down to business

While the EU and the US might not see eye-to-eye on climate protection, the issue of economic integration is a far less thorny one.

The world's two largest economic blocs are, after all, each other's main trading partners, with 1.7 million euros worth of trade flowing across the Atlantic every day. Between them, they make up nearly half the world's economic output and dominate its trade.

And according to Merkel, fewer regulatory barriers between the EU and US would this increasing integration with a rise of 3.5 percent in gross domestic product -- which is why she has made intensifying and consolidating the transatlantic partnership one of the key priorities of Germany's six-month EU-presidency.

The German chancellor first referred to the new partnership when she met US President George Bush in early January. Her initiative aims to cut red tape in the financial sector, health, food and energy -- making exporting goods and services easier.

It's a wrap

At a meeting with Barroso in Berlin last week, Merkel said the agreement was ready for the EU-US summit in Washington next Monday.

"We will sign a framework agreement, which has the long-term goal of establishing a common market in order to overcome the obstacles that exist today and that cost us a lot of energy, a lot of time and a lot of money," she said.

The common market conditions would mean mutual recognition of norms such as admission procedures in the banking sector, coordinating accounting standards and agreeing common vehicle standards, which could save up to 7 percent of production costs. The TEC is expected to be headed by a European Commissioner, with Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen tipped as a probable candidate. His US counterpart would be of cabinet rank.

After meeting the chancellor in Berlin, Barroso said the EU Commission would lend its full support to Merkel's initiative.

"It is a very important and ambitious project," Barroso said. "I believe it will enhance through regulatory convergence, removing some obstacles that exist today to the flow of investment, to the increase of trade, to give more robust growth to our economies. It is a fresh start for the economic relationship between the United States and Europe."

Thumbs up from captains of industry

Business leaders in Europe have been quick to welcome the pact-to-be.

Jürgen Thumann, president of the Federation of German Industries told DW that he expects the agreement to boost European economic growth by three percent. He added that European business leaders had been involved in designing the pact.

"The American government and the EU, the commission, together with business have made very great progress over the last months," he said. "I expect a very good outcome on Monday."

The United States Council for International Business, meanwhile, is supporting the initiative, said its chairman William Parret.

At a business meeting preparing the upcoming G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Parret stressed that he was hoping for more than just a bilateral agreement. In the long term, he said, trade barriers had to fall all over the world.

"We need to continue to stay with the same principles around free trade, free investment," he said. "The principles are the same whether it is transatlantic or global. We don’t have different principles for different regions."