The US and European chambers of commerce are to work together to try to reduce regulation on business on both sides of the Atlantic, a conference in Dublin heard yesterday.
Business figures from Europe are going to be invited to the US to make their views known to the US authorities, while business figures from the US are to be invited to Europe to lobby for reduced regulation here.
The president and chief executive of the US Chamber of Commerce, Mr Thomas Donoghue, said US and European business would have to work together to "deal with regulation". He said Europe and the US had a long- term interdependent relationship that transcended the "political gyrations of the moment".
Overcoming Obstacles to Transatlantic Trade and Investment, a conference organised by the US Chamber of Commerce, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Eurochambres), and the American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, was held in Iveagh House, Dublin.
Dr Christoph Leitl, president of Eurochambres, said European business could learn from the "spirit of enterprise" that existed in the US, and from its optimism. "The US says 'we have a problem, let's fix it'. The Europeans say 'we have a problem, that's terrible'."
He said the European regulatory system was "out of control" and urged the newly elected members of the European Parliament to address themselves to the issue.
He said European business also wanted action on currency fluctuation. The US had the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr Alan Greenspan, who was showing direction and an ability to act.
"We have Trichet and he does nothing," he said, in a reference to the president of the European Central Bank, Mr Jean Claude Trichet. He said he would like to see more co-operation between the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve.
Mr Donoghue said he shared Dr Leitl's view that the European and US regulatory systems were out of control.
He said Asian and other developing countries had large lobbying operations in Washington seeking change that benefitted their countries. The US Chamber of Commerce, which had an office in Brussels, was going to start lobbying the more "innovative" member-states in the EU in an effort to assert influence on the EU.
He said it was natural that European countries such as Ireland, which were not saddled with the sort of demographic and legacy problems that Germany and France were saddled with, would be prospering. He said that the US was going to be dealing with EU countries such as Ireland, the UK and Spain, because they were the countries where there was going to be economic growth.
Mr Donoghue said the US Chamber of Commerce had tackled "head on" the "silly" arguments in the US concerning outsourcing. "We are all for it, we are all for outsourcing to Ireland and to India and to China." He said the US enjoyed a surplus in services trading in 2003 of almost $60 billion.
"The dynamics of outsourcing are producing more jobs in the US than are being lost."
He said that the countries of the EU, just like the US, were facing a future where there would not be enough workers to fill the jobs available. In the US, it was estimated, there would be 10 million jobs more than there were people to fill them, by 2010.
He said Europe and the US had to come together to decide how it was going to deal with countries such as India and China which were going to become very significant forces in the world. "We better damn well decide what we are going to do about it."
