U.S. Mission to the European Union
Brussels, Belgium Remarks by E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs THE FUTURE OF U.S.-EU RELATIONS November 25, 2003
(as prepared for delivery) Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be here with you today to discuss the future of U.S.-EU relations. Our task on this panel is to answer the question "where are we going?" in this relationship. To do that, we should ask ourselves "where do we want to end up?" Today, the U.S. and EU have the most integrated economies on earth. We enjoy the benefits which flow from our $2 trillion [$2,000,000 million] investment and trade relationship -- millions of jobs created and supported on both sides of the Atlantic and an incredibly diverse array of goods and services we trade with one another. While trade is a key part of our relationship, it's just one facet. A more significant expression of our commitment to each other -- and a real reflection of the ease which marks so much of our relationship -- is the enormous investments we have made in each other's economies. We remain each other's largest investor. Beyond our trade and investment relationship, our citizens continue to enjoy countless opportunities in our shared Transatlantic space to fulfill their aspirations -- to travel, pursue higher education, engage in artistic collaboration or joint scientific research and achievement. They do so on both sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. and EU share an enormous stake in maintaining the unhindered flow of people, goods, finance and information between our societies. Frankly, we've gotten used to it and come to rely on that open access in our shared space. At the same time, events in the last two years have forced us to recognize that the very openness of our societies leaves us vulnerable. Terrorists have used our open borders and financial systems to attack our societies, economies and way of life. Organized criminals have violated our borders to smuggle illegal immigrants and narcotics and to exploit women and children. Confronting these threats to our democracy -- without losing the benefits of an open economy and society and the civil liberties and privacy we cherish --- will be an enormous challenge for the U.S. and EU in the opening decades of this century. Because we share common values -- and perhaps equally important -- common objectives -- I am confident that we can meet this challenge. When we -- and our relationship -- face increasingly global threats, we have demonstrated that we can harness our common will and uncommon talents to find common ground and develop effective, innovative ways to counter these threats. Together, we work to make the structures that underpin travel and commerce more secure and more efficient to allow more people to people and goods and services exchanges. We refuse to allow threats and fears to keep us from realizing our aspirations. We tackle these problems head on. It's not always easy, because our approaches don't always start out at the same point. But as citizens of free and open societies, we are committed to meeting the threats to our freedom, our security and our way of life. We know that our best chance for success lies in our working together. European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs Vitorino recently noted that "the distinction between internal and external security threats is increasingly blurred, if not irrelevant." I agree. European integration in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, with such measures as the creation of EUROPOL and EUROJUST, the adoption of a common European arrest warrant and expanded contacts between member states police and prosecutors, provides new opportunities for transatlantic cooperation against terrorism and organized crime. The U.S. and EU have already signed an agreement to facilitate the flow of information between law enforcement agencies across the Atlantic and agreements on extradition and mutual legal assistance. As European integration in law enforcement and the judiciary advance, there will be further opportunities to provide police and prosecutors new tools to attack crime that transcends national borders. Following 9/11, the EU adopted new mechanisms to freeze the assets of terrorist organizations and combat money laundering. We have worked together to ensure universal membership in the UN terrorist finance convention and to coordinate efforts to deny terrorist organizations access to financing and the means to move the monies which fund their attacks on innocent people in New York, Bali and most recently, tragically, in Istanbul. We still have a long way to go. We need to make coordinated measures freezing terrorist assets faster and more effective by establishing more realistic common standards on evidence and enhanced information sharing through international organizations such as FATF and Lyon Group. Because we share common values -- and common objectives, we are together working to create a seamless area where passengers can cross Open Skies and arrive at their destinations safely. Our negotiators have begun an exciting endeavor -- working to reach a U.S.-EU civil aviation agreement which will provide more convenient, less costly and more rationalized travel and trade through a Transatlantic Open Skies space. But we don't just want more choices and less costly travel. We want safer travel. Heightened aviation security was the most immediate and most publicly visible response to the events of 9/11. While our first response required blanket measures that were applied across the board, we also initiated the development of smarter measures that will allow us to focus our attention on the small fraction of passengers that warrant a closer look. To screen more effectively, we need more information more quickly. One source of critical data is passenger name record information, which is generated in the process of making a travel reservation. We have been working intensively with the European Commission to reach an arrangement that would allow strictly controlled access to such data for passenger screening, border security and risk assesment. Our talks with the Commission have focused on the challenge of integrating privacy protections with critical security measures. We believe the result will be an arrangement will improve our ability to make the skies safer for us all, while also speeding and easing processing for the vast majority of passengers traveling through U.S. airports. Because we share common values -- and common objectives, I am confident that we can work through our differences on tough issues such as data privacy and overcome technical impediments to provide better security for our borders, including more reliable travel documents, greater use of technologies such as biometrics to establish identity and greater sharing of information to prevent -- to the extent possible -- access of terrorists and criminal organizations to our societies. We need to continue our close cooperation in international bodies such as ICAO and the G-8 which are examining these issues. We are also working together to create a seamless area where legitimate trade can flow freely through smarter borders, unhindered by our fears of what might accompany it. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has embarked on a Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) partnership in which more than 4500 companies representing the entire breadth of the global supply chain are working with CBP to identify security gaps, and implement specific security measures and best practices, in order to protect supply chains from foreign loading docks to U.S. seaports, airports and land borders. Our joint efforts with foreign partners -- including the European Commission -- on the Container Security Initiative have improved our ability to identify high-risk shipments at both CSI and U.S. ports of entry. Just last week, the U.S. and the EU initialed an important agreement on CSI. Working together, we are now far better able to make our trade safer and more efficient. Because we share so many common values and objectives, I am confident that we can bridge gaps in regulatory approaches, eliminating barriers through regulatory cooperation. With commitment, ingenuity and mutual confidence, we can build a Transatlantic space in which we can be freer, more prosperous and more secure than we are today. Realizing this vision will not take one or two years. It may take a decade or more. It won't be easy, but if we agree that we want the benefits of a freer, more prosperous and more secure Transatlantic space, we also know that we can achieve it only by doing the hard work together. |
