European reluctance to allow cloned animals to be sold as food is well known – and indeed the practice is outlawed. But there are signs of cautious changes in these attitudes.

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What seemed like a deadlock on the level of principles, regarding U.S. beef imports to the EU, turned out to be soluble in a commercial trade-off. A festering dispute about a European ban against hormone-fed beef from the United States was solved this week when the EU agreed to a big expansion of its import quota for non-hormone fed U.S. beef.

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While the EU and the new U.S. Administration are trying to harmonize their views, trade in food and regulations regarding biotechnology remain among the most delicate areas in transatlantic trade negotiations, in part because of the different backgrounds on which public opinions are based. Dan Rotenberg, Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the Delegation of the European Commission addressed  the status of the Doha Trade Talks in this sector. His colleague at the Delegation, Dr. Wolf-Martin Maier, Counselor for Food Safety, Health and Consumer Affairs addressed questions regarding food safety and consumer protection regulations.
Convened on the eve of the IMF and World Bank Spring meetings, this seminar gathered U.S. and European policy-makers to discuss the role of transatlantic cooperation in turning the crisis into an opportunity for better global financial governance. The need for closer regulatory coordination between the United States and the European Union emerged as a widely-shared conclusion among the participants, including The Honorable Paul Kanjorski, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises and Stefano Manservisi, Director General, DG Development, The European Commission. Willy Kiekens, Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, and Elizabeth Jacobs, Deputy Director, Office of International Affairs, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission outlined the priorities of their respective organization. The Honorable Erkki Liikanen, Member of the European Central Bank Governing Council and Governor of the Bank of Finland echoes this call for increased coordination between the US and Europe, as well as among European States. The Honorable Luc Frieden, Minister of the Treasury for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg offered the luncheon keynote address. The meeting was moderated by Daniel Duncan, Senior Director of Government Affairs, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
 

This meeting was supported by the Transatlantic Program of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany through funds of the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

The auto industry provides an instructive case study of how differently Europeans and Americans are generally approaching the challenge of the economic downturn.

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