"The first and foremost priority for me as the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs is growth and jobs, in the context of macroeconomic stability. This is what our citizens need and ask most urgently, and this must be our joint overarching objective in the coming years. We need to work out a coordinated strategy for managing the exit from the current crisis, and we have to create conditions for sustainable and smart growth for current and future generations."

– Olli Rehn
EU Economic & Monetary Affairs Commissioner

The EU and the US have by far the most important bilateral economic relationship in the world. The EU and the US together account for about 40% of world GDP (valued at purchasing power parity). Their combined share of world trade is also close to 40%. They enjoy an unprecedented degree of economic interconnectedness. They are each other's single largest trading partners in combined trade in goods and services. At the same time, their investment relationship dwarfs all others. Half of EU foreign direct investments are located in the United States and about half of US foreign direct investments are in the Union. The dollar and the euro are the world's most important currencies.

The EU and the US have a wide-ranging institutional framework for conducting their economic relationship, much of which is at the multilateral level. At the bilateral level, the 2007 EU-US Summit, held in Washington in April, agreed on a Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration. As part of this agreement, a Transatlantic Economic Council was established to oversee these efforts. Macroeconomic issues do not form part of this framework, but they are discussed at the G7G8/G20, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, and also informally in bilateral contacts. 

European Union Delegation, Washington, DC, Staff

USEFUL Links: 

European Commission Websites

• EU Economic & Financial Affairs Directorate General
• EU Economic & Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn
• EU Economy, Finance & Tax Portal
• EU Industry & Entrepreneurship Commissioner Antonio Tajani
• EU Enterprise & Industry Directorate General
• EU Internal Market & Services Directorate General
• EU Internal Market & Services Commissioner Michel Barnier
• EU Employment, Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities Directorate General
• EU Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion Commissioner László Andor
• EU Employment & Social Rights Portal
• EU Budget Directorate General 
• EU Financial Programming & Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowsk
• EU Statistical Office (EUROSTAT)
• Euro Challenge (Opportunity for US high school students to learn about the Euro) Website

Overviews

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• Euro/Finance/Economics Hot Topic
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• Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) Hot Topic
• EU Focus: EU Economic and Monetary Union: A Framework for Stability (en español) (January 2009)
• EU Insight: EU Economic and Monetary Union and the Euro: A Decade of Achievement (1/09) 

More Information

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The two 2007 Euro Challenge (http://www.euro-challenge.org/) winning teams visited the European Commission's Washington Delegation on May 22, 2007. The first-place team, Montclair High School, and the second-place team, Bronx School of Science, prevailed at an early-March match at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Ninth- and tenth-grade students (aged fourteen to sixteen) on twenty-three teams from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut competed this year. Pictured along with the victorious teams are their faculty advisors; European Commission Washington Delegation Economic & Financial Section Head Nigel Nagarajan; European Commission Washington Delegation Senior Economist Amy Medearis; Moody's Foundation Program Director Daisy Auger-Dominguez; Working in Support of Education's Kristy Nguyen; Embassy of Spain Financial Counselor Ubaldo Gonzalez; German Marshall Fund's Richard Salt; European Commission official at the World Bank Pilar Garcia-Martinez. The trip to Washington, DC--where team members also visited the Federal Reserve Board and the International Monetary Fund--was generously funded for the winners by the Moody's Foundation.