The European Union's new trade chief called for a fresh push to end acrimonious trade spats between Europe and the United States on Thursday, arguing that strengthened transatlantic ties would spur economic growth. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson urged Brussels and Washington to resolve disputes and work together for the successful conclusion of global talks aimed at liberalising world trade and helping developing states.
"Nobody would deny that we have been through a difficult patch in the last few years," he told a transatlantic seminar in Brussels. "It is time for us to make a fresh start."
The two sides are currently engaged in a tit-for-tat dispute in the World Trade Organisation over subsidies to aircraft makers Airbus and Boeing, as well as rows over anti-dumping duties, genetically modified crops and tax breaks to exporters.
Mandelson said the way forward was to remove regulatory barriers to transatlantic trade while presenting a united front in global trade liberalisation talks.
"We have a joint responsibility, in pursuing our own interests, to keep our eye firmly on the Doha Development Round (of trade negotiations) and other means of delivering benefits for other less advantaged parts of the world," he said.
The close friend of British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged recently re-elected US President George W. Bush to support closer European integration and ignore hawks in Washington sceptical of the EU's role in the world.
"A successful relationship between Europe and America, which is our common interest, requires a strong Europe, not a weak and divided one," he added.