Transatlantic Economic Council

The economic relationship between the EU and the US is by far the largest between any two trading blocs in history. Today, the EU and the US are responsible for almost half of world GDP. They share the largest bilateral trading partnership worldwide with 33% of world trade in goods and 44% of world trade in services. Every day, about € 1.7 billion of transatlantic trade (in goods and services) takes place.

Source: Eurostat

The investment links are even more substantial. The EU and US are each other’s most important source for foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2009, the EU held a total of € 1,134 billion of direct investment stocks in the US, while the US had € 1,044 billion in the EU. This means that together the US and the EU accounted for 62% of the inward stock of FDI and 75% of outward stock of FDI in 2009. On 13 May 2008, the first ever EU-US Joint Statement on open investment was issued.

In 2007, the EU and the US launched the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) to address the priorities identified by the Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration [47 KB] adopted at the 2007 EU-US Summit. Since the TEC’s inception, it has met five times: on 9 November 2007 in Washington DC, on 13 May 2008 in Brussels, on 12 December 2008, 27 October 2009 and 17 December 2010 in Washington DC.

This EU–US bilateral trade relationship should also be seen in the broader multilateral context. The EU–US partnership was one of the key driving forces behind the launch of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) round of negotiations. Both sides wish to see a successful conclusion to the DDA as soon as possible.