US-EU Trade & Technology Council – A welcome opportunity to align on standards

Orgalim Director General Malte Lohan – who spoke at the meeting – said: "The joint statement from this inaugural meeting puts forward a predictably wide set of priorities, from semiconductors to AI to sensitive technologies and export controls, and the potential for working together in these areas is clear. From the perspective of Europe's technology industries, a key added value of the TTC would be to align on standards and remove barriers to market access. We therefore welcome in particular the stated objective to 'maintain competitive, free, and fair transatlantic commerce in new and emerging technologies, by avoiding new and unnecessary barriers to trade in these technologies'". 

"Non-tariff barriers increase the price of our products for the US market by up to 18%, because they must be specifically manufactured to meet local requirements. Fixing this will boost our long-term growth and profitability (especially for our export-dependent SMEs), and strengthen our ability to develop and market the next generation of vital technologies. To remove these market access barriers, we have a simple vision: one standard, one test, accepted everywhere. 

That is why, at this inaugural meeting, I highlighted three recommendations for the TTC:  

1. The TTC should establish international standards (IEC, ISO, ITU) as the basis for our respective technical requirements. For example, we already have existing international standards in the fields of AI, Robotics for Manufacturing, and Cybersecurity. These are the logical tool for supporting convergence in our technical requirements 

2. We call on our US partners to transpose these international standards in their national system 

3. We call on TTC to catalyse progress on an EU-US Mutual Recognition Agreement".

Read more on Orgalim's priorities for EU-US trade relations here.