TPN Publications

TPN has consistently developed its policy vision through a series of published documents. Drawn for ongoing informal meetings of TPN participants, they have provided the basis for continuing dialogue among a broadening transatlantic policy community, with the aim of focusing this dialogue on TPN's primary objective of strengthening the partnership between the EU and the US. These documents are summarised below:

May 2008 - TPN Report on Completing the Transatlantic Market (Second Annual Report)

February 2007 - TPN Report on Completing the Transatlantic Market - Second Annual Report

February 2007 - Issue Road Map

February 2007 - Political Road Map

December 2003: "A Strategy to Strengthen Transatlantic Partnership"

This document was produced as the result of 18 months of intense consultation and reflection initiated by TPN's political leadership as a direct response to a perceived deterioration in transatlantic relations.

In pursuit of this consensus-building effort, or TPN Outreach Exercise, recommendations for strengthening transatlantic economic, political and defence/security cooperation were gathered over a series of small roundtable discussions in Brussels and Washington, as well as over the course of TPN's annual conferences and transatlantic legislative exchange visits. All recommendations were circulated throughout the Network, reviewed to determine their level of support, and consolidated into a 10 point, 10-year Action Plan that formed the centrepiece of the final Strategy document.

The TPN Leadership Summit meeting in Washington on 5 December 2003 gave broad support to the TPN Strategy and Action Plan. The “critical mass” of key US and EU Chief Executive Officers of TPN participating businesses, US and EU parliamentarians, and high-level administration officials present at the Summit welcomed the proposals. The document has been widely disseminated to key multipliers in the transatlantic policy communities.

The efforts of TPN and its network of multipliers to mobilise support for the transatlantic market and other Strategy goals have already resulted in some notable endorsements.

February 1998: “Toward Transatlantic Partnership; The Cooperation Report”

This was the first TPN document to be completed under joint political leadership from both sides of the Atlantic. Not only did this include nine ‘building block' papers written by individual thinkers on specific topics within the network, it also took the opportunity to underline the continuing need for political leadership on both sides – for the Europeans to build a stronger European pillar and for effort on the part of the US to accommodate a more coherent European political partner. In the recommendations was also included the idea of signing a broader EU/US framework treaty to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaty founding the EU in March 1957.

The incoming European Commission in late 1999 and the new US administration in early 2001 found themselves operating in a different context which was given a firm twist by the events of 11 September 2001, changing significantly the priorities of the Transatlantic partners for the foreseeable future.

November 1995: “Toward Transatlantic Partnership: The Partnership Project”

Not only did this document clarify the need to focus on specific economic and political issues to broaden transatlantic partnership, it also suggested that further far-reaching steps be taken to:

• launch negotiations for a transatlantic political and economic treaty by the end of the decade;
• make the transition within NATO, over the same period, towards a balanced partnership structure, in step with the progressive development of a stronger and more coherent European defence and security pillar;
• link these two treaty-based partnerships in a single political framework by early in the next century.

November 1994: “Toward Transatlantic Partnership: A European Strategy”

This document elaborated an analysis based on four “pillars”, identifying the distinction between bilateral and multilateral economic and political interests. It also identified the enduring concept of the “linkage” of the political, economic and security interests, underlining that a future transatlantic relationship, which fails to create strong linkages between them, would ultimately fail. The Strategy's central message was that the collective participation of the EU is the only way for a broad and balanced EU-US partnership to be developed: this would require the EU to have a fully functioning internal market as well as to progressively develop its common foreign and security policies. Much of this material was used as the basis for the ‘New Transatlantic Agenda' signed in December 1995 under the Spanish Presidency of the EU.

(also see Achievements)