Text tabled : RC-B6-0149/2007

  Pedro Guerreiro (GUE/NGL), in writing. (PT) The resolution on transatlantic relations – undersigned by the Right and the Social Democrats and adopted today by the majority in Parliament – is a useful snapshot of the current state of EU-USA relations. The majority in Parliament has set the agenda and its priorities, of which I should like to highlight the following:

- ‘welcomes the improved climate of EU-US relations on an equal basis’ and expresses the desire to share responsibilities in what is termed ‘global governance’;

- ‘strengthening the transatlantic market’, with the liberalisation of financial services a ‘key issue’, and calling for ‘regulatory convergence and a level playing field, in view of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment’;

- the affirmation of ‘serious opportunities for the EU and US to work closely together’ in relation to ‘the Western Balkans, the South Caucasus region, Central Asia, the Middle East, Afghanistan, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Africa’;

- strengthening cooperation in the context of what it calls ‘fighting terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction’ as ‘the greatest security challenges for both partners’, with NATO a ‘transatlantic forum for political debate in a true partnership of equals’.

This agenda expresses the ambitions of the major European capitalist powers, in particular Germany, in relation to the USA.