From European Voice: High on the agenda of the strategic dialogue should be a strategy for broadening and deepening the transatlantic market. This has long been a token mutual goal that has failed for lack of ambition.

Yet a study for the Commission published in December concluded that elimination of just half of the transatlantic non-tariff trade measures and regulatory divergences could add €122 billion (now $176bn) a year to the EU economy by 2018.

That is more than four times higher than the EU stands to gain from the current Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on agriculture and manufacturing, according to a 2009 estimate by Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

US gains from a transatlantic deal would be less, only €41bn ($59bn), but still three times the potential benefit of the Doha deal now on the table in Geneva. (photo: Atlantic Times)