About 150 senior EU and US regulators, EU member states representatives, European Parliament and US Congress officials attended the first high-level meeting of the EU-US Regulatory Cooperation Forum on 26 January in Brussels.
Numerous non-governmental interested parties also attended the meeting, including the Trans-Atlantic Business and Consumer Dialogues (TABD and TACD).
The forum meeting offered an insight into "how we regulate" on both sides of the Atlantic and to review recent developments in EU and US regulatory environments. It also allowed stakeholders and regulators to identify priorities in reducing regulatory differences and thereby advancing transatlantic economic integration.
"We must now, on both sides, reflect more on what we have discussed as well as validate our ideas internally on what the next steps could be," an EU official said after the meeting. He said follow-up points might include:
- how to link the horizontal and sectoral dialogues and "give teeth" to the overall effort;
- review stakeholder suggestions, including on transparency and conflict resolution;
- jointly analyse respective regulatory management systems, including the practices (US Circular A-4 and EC Guidelines) on impact assessments of draft regulations;
- consider training opportunities for officials in better regulation issues, economics, environmental aspects, to take place at relevant universities;
- consider jointly collecting and using data, given how costly and time consuming it is to gather data.
