European Institute

The Hon. László Kovács, Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, and Robert Verrue, Director General for Taxation and Customs Union at the European Commission, reviewed current initiatives in supply chain security, the effects on international trade and the prospects for transatlantic cooperation. The bill proposed by the U.S. Congress requiring the scanning of 100% of containers entering U.S. ports became the focus of the discussion. Referring to the technical difficulty of this task, its negative impact on commerce, as well as on transatlantic relations, participants concurred that 100% scanning was neither practical nor cost-efficient given the available technology and the volume of shipments to the U.S. Commissioner Kovacs concluded that mutual recognition and bilateral cooperation is needed in addressing these critical security issues. The involvement of the private sector was also a key to developing a sound container security agreement. Participants included Mandy Bowers, Professional Staff Member, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives; and Peter Verga, Principal Deputy, Homeland Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, who offered the U.S. perspective. Evelyn Suarez, a partner at the law firm of Williams Mullen moderated the meeting.

His Excellency Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador of Germany to the United States, outlined the priorities of the German Presidency of the European Union, which runs  January-June, 2007. He address a number of areas the Presidency will tackle, including the EU Constitution and enlargement, climate change, instability in the Middle East and global trade challenges such as intellectual property rights protections. He emphasized the need for a more cohesive transatlantic strategy on these and other global concerns and noted that transatlantic partnerships are vital to the success of the Presidency’s goals on these issues.

Nick Witney, Chief Executive of the European Defense Agency addressed European defense capabilities and the transatlantic cooperation needed in order to meet the emerging requirements of the European Security and Defense Policy. The meeting was moderated by Ambassador Robert Hunter, Senior Advisor of RAND.