Differing EU-US regulation will increase companies' costs

Differing regulatory regimes in the EU and the US could restrict innovation, make companies' operations more costly and will ultimately impede transatlantic trade, according to Niall Fitzgerald, chairman of Unilever.

Fitzgerald was speaking at IBEC's main EU presidency event, a conference entitled "Is Regulation Killing Business? EU and US perspectives".

Speaking about managing EU and US regulatory regimes, Mr Fitzgerald said that effective regulation meant finding a balance between the cost and the benefit to society.

Taking patents as one of several examples, Mr Fitzgerald said there were disparities between US and European regulation.

"Because of resistance by some member states, the idea of an EU patent is still not a reality. Obtaining a patent in Europe takes twice as long and costs three times as much as in the US. That is a direct and unnecessary impediment to innovation," he said.

He added that the most significant barriers to trade between the EU and US were no longer the visible barriers, such as tariffs. It was now the hidden technical and regulatory barriers which add the cost and frustration to doing business.

Commenting on world trade he said: "We will be completely supportive of all efforts to break the deadlock on the Doha development round. A WTO settlement could lift an estimated 140 million people out of poverty by 2015 and boost world trade by the equivalent of adding another economy the size of Canada to the world. It's an ambition worth fighting for."

Also speaking today, and echoing Fitzgeralds comments , the president of IBEC said that Europe is doing itself damage by piling on more and more regulation without taking account of the cost to jobs and business.

Maurice Pratt said European based businesses faced much higher costs through regulation than those in the US or in the Far East.