The
European Union and United States have agreed to pursue talks to create a
trans-Atlantic free trade deal. European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso
said a free trade alliance would be a global "game-changer."
Barroso
confirmed on Wednesday that the EU would push to launch talks with the United
States a day after US President Barack Obama announced his support for a free
trade agreement.
An accord
setting up the largest free trade bloc in the world would be
"ground-breaking ... a game-changer," Barroso told a news conference.
"These
negotiations will set a standard, not only for our future bilateral trade and
investment, including regulatory issues, but also for the development of global
trade rules," the European Commission head said.
"It
will not be easy," he added, but the result would be a "win-win"
situation.
EU Trade
Commissioner Karel De Gucht said initial talks could start in the summer with a
dossier ideally finished within two years.
Their
comments followed the release of a joint US-EU report recommending the start of
talks. The report said the deal could see the EU's economy gaining around 0.5
percent and the US economy around 0.4 percent by 2027. It estimated an
additional annual income of 86 billion euros ($115.80 billion) for the EU and
65 billion euros for the United States.
In his
State of the Union address on Tuesday Obama told Congress he had agreed to open
the talks "because trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic
supports millions of good-paying American jobs."
A free
trade pact between the two sides has been envisaged for years, although until
now little real movement has taken place. The US-EU trade relationship is
currently worth around 500 billion euros annually.
Germany
'welcomes' deal
German
officials also responded positively to the proposal.
"We
expressly welcome this clear commitment of President Obama for a transatlantic
free trade agreement," German government spokesperson, Steffen Seibert,
said at a regular press briefing in Berlin on Wednesday.
The
sentiment echoed a comment made earlier this month by Chancellor Angela Merkel
during a visit to the German capital by US Vice President Joe Biden.
German
Foreign Minister Guide Westerwelle said the trade deal would be "a motor
for growth on both sides of the Atlantic, without taking on new debt."
The United
is currently one of Germany's most important trading partners. In 2011, the US
was the fourth largest importer of German goods, worth nearly 50 billion euros.
Germany,
for its part, imported nearly 75 billion euros in US goods, making the North
American country its second largest exporter.
ccp/hc (AFP, Reuters, dpa)
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