The European Union's Transatlantic Relationship. College of Europe EU Diplomacy Paper 2/2006, December 2006

Since its inception post-World War II, the European unification process has been embedded within a strong transatlantic dimension [Marshall-Plan, Truman/Eisenhower, Monnet, Kennedy/Hallstein]. Today, the EU-US relationship is still the most powerful, the most comprehensive and the strategically most important relationship in the world: most powerful because the EU and the US combine some 60% of the world's GDP, with the EU having overtaken the US numbers of around US $10 trillion recently. They represent around 40% of world trade in goods and even more in services. They hold 80% of the global capital markets. They are each other's main trading partner and source, as much as recipient, of foreign direct investment. Most comprehensive because there is scarcely an issue that does not involve the transatlantic relationship – from Afghanistan to biotech, from WTO negotiations to counter-terrorism, from data privacy to aircraft – the EU and US are involved bilaterally, regionally or globally. Strategically most important because Europe matters to America, and America matters to Europe, because of major converging concerns, largely compatible values and over-lapping interests. The EU and the US share common objectives with regard to coherent strategies for the promotion of peace, stability and economic development around the globe. There is – in the short and medium term – no alternative to the EU-US relationship