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EU-US
Summit 2007
EABC
Atlantic Agenda
April 5,
2007
“Real Change Requires Real Change”
Dear President Bush, President Barroso and
Chancellor Merkel,
The
European-American Business Council represents 68 US and European
global companies, united in promoting Trans-Atlantic investment,
innovation and integration. We support greatly enhanced
EU-US government-to-government and industry-government
collaboration. Indeed, every nation’s global competitiveness
today must include the effectiveness of its government-to-government
regulatory partnerships.
As we move into the 21st century our companies are finding that some of
the most significant “trade barriers” are now regulatory barriers.
With this in mind, the EABC calls upon the leaders of the EU-US Summit
to advance implementation of the Trans-Atlantic Economic Initiative
first adopted in 2005. The EABC Atlantic Agenda includes several
business operational issues that involve regulatory reform. They
include:
Bio-Fuels:
The EABC applauds the 2006 Summit’s
commitment to strategic Atlantic energy cooperation, supporting the
diversification of energy sources and supplies, as well as the
promotion of market-based energy security policies. During the
April 2007 EU-US Summit, we hope you will commit to fashioning
common bio-fuels standards – from field to fuel - so that a
friction-free, competitive Atlantic market for alternative fuels can be
fully developed .
eAccessibility:
Accessible technologies are
crucial to creating equal opportunities for all citizens and
maintaining a competitive, innovative Atlantic market through the
optimal use of all human talent. These technologies allow people
with disabilities to be fully engaged participants in – and
contributors to – our society and economy. They ensure that as
individuals develop motion, sight or hearing-related limitations; these
will have a minimum impact on their ability to maintain highly
productive careers and rich lives. The development of accessibility
tools can spur associated innovations, which may result in better tools
and increased productivity for all workers. To realize the
maximum potential from eAccessibility, the market for such technologies
must be coherent, consistent and global. There is a real danger that
divergent policies and conformance requirements at national or regional
levels - intended to assist people with disabilities – will instead
create a fragmented market which will result in higher costs, reduced
innovation, and significant curtailment of trans-national accessibility
for those people they are meant to assist. US-European
cooperation and leadership can avoid this pitfall by working to adopt
harmonized, global and technology neutral standards that allows
innovative companies to self-declare the conformance of their
ever-improving products to applicable standards. EABC member
companies applaud the 2006 Summit Declaration’s promise of implementing
an EU-US eAccessibility Plan. We hope that 2007 will be a
breakthrough year for tangible regulatory results.
eHealth:
Rapidly ageing Atlantic populations mean a
rapidly increasing demand for health care. Indeed, health
care costs are now a significant percentage of GNPs and health
care system improvements will be a cornerstone of American and European
global competitiveness. Additionally, people are on the
move and so are diseases. Today ever more mobile
societies are at greater risk of pandemics. Medical records
need to be accessible “any time, any where”. Ironically,
while the West has the world’s best technologies for treating patients,
health care providers as a business have not kept pace with other
sectors in making use of information technology in the area of patient
records. The potential for greater efficiency, accuracy, patient
safety and lower costs through use of IT has been virtually
untapped. These systemic inefficiencies, combined with
exponential growth in demand for services threaten our ability to
maintain a healthy, productive and competitive workforce and
economy. To address this shortfall in the use of cutting edge IT
management systems, the EABC calls upon the US and EU to focus
greater action in three key areas: 1) Deployment of home-based
health care technologies; 2) Development of open standards based,
interoperable Atlantic systems for electronic storage and transmission
of patient records and prescriptions; and 3) Establishment of a global
system for sharing data crucial to the containment of infectious
disease. It is in this last area that a firm commitment to
Atlantic cooperation is most urgently needed. To ensure our
ability to contain future outbreaks of infectious disease, the EABC
advocates that the 2007 Summit Declaration announce the intention to
create an EU-US eHealth Roadmap for harmonization of patient records
standards to foster real-time Atlantic transmission of crucial patient
information in emergency situations. On May 10, 2007 the EABC
will hold a one-day eHealth Policy Workshop in Brussels for key EU and
US government officials, as well as industry executives to make
progress towards this goal.
Additional areas for Atlantic regulatory cooperation
include:
 Accounting
Systems: Mutual recognition of US GAPP & IFRS
financial reporting by 2009.
RFID Privacy Guidelines:
Collaboration on
privacy guidelines for “the Internet of things”.
Metrics-Plus Labeling:
Agreement on “Metrics +
English/Imperial” dual labeling by 2010.
The EABC and
its member companies urge the United
States and the
European Union to take full advantage of these opportunities for
Atlantic regulatory cooperation as you finalize plans for the April
2007 Summit outcomes. We invite you to contact us for further
elaboration and welcome every opportunity to support a successful EU-US
Summit. The time for action is now. Results from Atlantic
collaboration must be realized. Real change requires real
change.
Sincerely yours,
Michael C. Maibach
EABC President & CEO
m (@) Maibach.us
202-449-7707
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