Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Constitutional and institutional questions
- PART II Bilateral and regional approaches
- 9 The relations between the EU and Switzerland
- 10 The relations between the EU and Andorra, San Marino and Monaco
- 11 The EU's Neighbourhood Policy towards Eastern Europe
- 12 The four Common Spaces: new impetus to the EU–Russia Strategic Partnership?
- 13 The EU's Strategic Partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East: a new geopolitical dimension of the EU's proximity strategies
- 14 The EU's transatlantic relationship
- PART III Selected substantive areas
- Table of Treaty Provisions
- Index
14 - The EU's transatlantic relationship
from PART II - Bilateral and regional approaches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Constitutional and institutional questions
- PART II Bilateral and regional approaches
- 9 The relations between the EU and Switzerland
- 10 The relations between the EU and Andorra, San Marino and Monaco
- 11 The EU's Neighbourhood Policy towards Eastern Europe
- 12 The four Common Spaces: new impetus to the EU–Russia Strategic Partnership?
- 13 The EU's Strategic Partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East: a new geopolitical dimension of the EU's proximity strategies
- 14 The EU's transatlantic relationship
- PART III Selected substantive areas
- Table of Treaty Provisions
- Index
Summary
Introduction: fundamentals of an enduring relationship
The fundamentals of the EU–US relationship can be summarised as follows:
Since its inception post World War II, the European unification process has been embedded within a strong transatlantic dimension [Marshall-Plan (1947); Truman/Eisenhower/Monnet; Kennedy/Hallstein].
Today, the EU–US relationship is still the most powerful, the most comprehensive and the strategically most important relationship in the world. The EU and the US combine some 60 per cent of the world's GDP, with the EU having overtaken the US numbers of around US$10 trillion recently. They represent around 40 per cent of world trade in goods and even more in services. They hold 80 per cent of the global capital markets. They are each other's main trading partner and source, as much as recipient, of foreign direct investment.
There is scarcely an issue that does not involve the transatlantic relationship – from Afghanistan to biotech, from WTO negotiations to counterterrorism, from data privacy to aircraft – the EU and US are involved bilaterally, regionally or globally. Europe matters to America, and America matters to Europe, because of major converging concerns, largely compatible values and overlapping interests. The EU and the US share common objectives with regard to coherent strategies for the promotion of peace, stability and economic development around the globe. There is – in the short and medium term – no alternative to the EU–US relationship.
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- Law and Practice of EU External RelationsSalient Features of a Changing Landscape, pp. 376 - 398Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008