Progress or Stagnation?

Progress in the negotiations in services trade is to be reviewed at the sixth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005, this date being crucial for successfully concluding the Doha Development Round. However, the way to a meaningful agreement on services will not be easy. The following article explains the challenges facing the negotiations and the reasons why progress in this field is so difficult to measure.

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*John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

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**Professor of International Economics, International University Bremen, Germany.     

A Long and thorny road

When the European Union and the United States agreed on the Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration at the EU-US Summit on 30 April 2007, creating the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), they praised themselves for opening a new era in transatlantic regulatory cooperation. Transatlantic integration and growth were said to be enhanced and efforts to reduce barriers to transatlantic trade and investment redoubled. However, after two meetings of the TEC with only modest achievements, enthusiasm has faded quickly and finger pointing has begun anew. What went wrong?