The Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), set up in 1995 as a joint initiative of the European Commission and the US Department of Commerce, is in effect a policy-making body. With eleven ERT companies among its ranks, the TABD hovers around the borderline between the Commission and the Roundtable. The TABD has been remarkably successful in pushing for the removal of obstacles to international trade and investment flows, mostly between the US and the European Union.
According to the European Round Table of Industrialists and other industry lobby groups, the world economy is becoming increasingly centred around three poles: the European Union, the United States and Japan (also referred to as the Triad). In this globalist world view, poorer regions figure predominantly as areas which must open themselves up for foreign investments, while the newly-industrialized regions (such as the so-called Asian tigers) are viewed as emerging markets for Triad blocs to penetrate.
Although the United States is the European Union’s largest trading partner, the EU is only one of the two top markets for the US.1 In 1994, the total value of trade between the EU and the US was close to 190 billion ECU – an increase of more than 10% over the previous year. The United States, with its minimum of social and monetary restrictions, appears to be the ultimate model for European industry to imitate. On the other hand, the US industry is one of its main competitors. In 1995, the old maxim “if you cant beat them, join them” seems to have prevailed in the creation of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD).
The TABD was a joint initiative of the European Commission (led by Commission Vice President and Commissioner for Trade Sir Leon Brittan and Commissioner for Industrial Affairs Martin Bangemann) and the US Department of Commerce. The press reported that the ERT was also a driving force behind the initiative. Sir Brittan explained the necessity of such a dialogue:
“The task of ensuring that economic decision-making in the global economy that is acceptable to our peoples is not only for governments. As companies and financial institutions become bigger players, they must also be aware of their political responsibilities. We should continue to examine new ways of involving leaders of the private sector in discussions about international economic policy priorities. One forum in which we are beginning successfully to put this principle into practice is the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.”2
Selina Jackson, US Business Coordinator for the TABD, describes the organization as “an unprecedented venture in government-business partnership. [...] It has no formal structure and no official secretariat; nor is it a new institution or simply another business organization designed to influence policy makers. Rather, the TABD is a private-sector force designed to respond to the new reality of trade; namely that companies are functioning globally and their involvement in the making of international trade policy is a natural outgrowth of such globalization.”3
The goal of this hybrid animal is “the realization of a true transatlantic marketplace through developing an action plan for the removal of obstacles to trade and investment flows across the Atlantic.”4 These barriers, TABD members feel, hamper the competitiveness of industry on both sides of the Atlantic. They argue for “the development of competition policies that allow unimpaired market access for foreign goods, services, ideas, investments and business people, so that they are able to benefit from the opportunity to compete in a market on terms equal or comparable to those enjoyed by local competitors.”5
To tackle these barriers, TABD members have opted to conduct their dialogue in fifteen separate issue groups, which focus on specific themes such as standards, certification and regulatory policy in various sectors (including the biotech, pharmaceutical and chemical sectors); multilateral trade issues in the World Trade Organization and other trade agreements; investment; intellectual property rights, and so forth.
The obstacles that the TABD is eager to remove include environmental, safety, health and worker regulations as well as restrictions protecting local and traditional markets. The TABD’s position on environmental legislation is spelled out clearly in the Chicago Declaration: “We urge governments not to undermine the international trading system through the use of trade measures to enforce environmental regulations.”6
The TABD’s inaugural conference was held in Seville, Spain, in November of 1995. A second meeting took place the following year in Chicago. After Seville, Jan Timmer of Philips (then a leading member of the ERT) concluded that: “there was absolute agreement that there are far too many rules now, and that they are great and unnecessary impediments to trade.” According to Sir Leon Brittan, the follow-up gathering in Chicago was “an innovative and exciting occasion. We and the American government had asked businessmen from both sides of the Atlantic to get together and see if they could reach agreement on what needed to be done next. If they could, governments would be hard put to explain why it couldn’t be done. The result was dramatic. European and American business leaders united in demanding more and faster trade liberalization. And that had an immediate impact...”7
The TABD has attracted a familiar crowd. Jan Timmer, chairman of Philips, is the current co-chairman (the other co-chair is Dana Mead, chairman of US-based oil company Tenneco). Many ERT member companies are also eager to extend their transatlantic contacts, including Asea Brown Boveri, Bayer, Bertelsmann, Ericsson, ICI, Olivetti, Pirelli, Philips, Siemens, Solvay and Unilever. Some of the influential TABD companies on the other side of the ocean are Boeing, Enron, Federal Express, Ford, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Time Warner, Westinghouse and Xerox. Other big hitters include the US Treasury, EU Directorate General XXI (Customs and Indirect Taxation), the US State Department, and former GATT Secretary-General Peter Sutherland.8 The Chicago conference drew some 300 participants: 200 from industry, and the remaining 100 from government.
Its hybrid government-business structure makes the TABD quite unique: it cannot be considered as an industry lobby group along the lines of the ERT or UNICE. Probably helped by its cross-identity, the TABD appears to be highly successful. Both the European Commission and the US administration promised to take the recommendations from Seville into account, and at its annual summit in December of 1995, the EU adopted a New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA) in which “many of the TABD recommendations have been incorporated.” An EU Commission paper issued after the Chicago meeting acknowledges that “the Commission, as well as the US Administration, will continue to cooperate closely with the business community.”9
1. The other is Canada. |back to text|
2. Leon Brittan, in his speech Globalisation: Responding to new Political and Moral Challenges, World Economic Forum, Davos, 30 January 1997. |back to text|
3. Selina Jackson, “The Transatlantic Business Dialogue: An Entrepreneurial Force Behind the New Transatlantic Agenda”, ECSA Review, Volume IX, No. 3, Fall 1996. |back to text|
4. TABD, Chicago Declaration, 9 November 1996, p.3. |back to text|
5. Preliminary Comments by Commission Services on the Overall Conclusions of the TABD, Brussels, 18 January 1996. |back to text|
6. TABD, Chicago Declaration, 9 November 1996. |back to text|
7. Sir Leon Brittan in his speech Investment Liberalisation: A New Issue for WTO. Europe and the Challenge of the Global Economy at the CBI Conference, Harrogate, 11 November 1996. |back to text|
8. Sutherland is chairman of Goldman Sachs International, a multinational consultancy. |back to text|
9. European Commission, DGI, DGIII, Report on the Conference of the TABD, 10 December 1996. |back to text|