STOCKHOLM, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Trade relations between the European Union and the United States have worsened steadily and must improve for the benefit of world trade, Sweden's Trade Minister Leif Pagrotsky said on Tuesday.
Sweden will hold the EU presidency in the first half of 2001.
Pagrotsky said he hoped the next U.S. administration led by president-elect George W. Bush from January would begin by taking some contentious issues off the table.
"We need to put an end to this trend of continued deterioration over the past period," Pagrotsky told Reuters.
"We must improve our bilateral trade relations with the United States... We need a steady and active partner in the United States," he said, noting 40 percent of global trade was cross-Atlantic.
Nobody, least of all poor countries, gained from the stalemate in EU-U.S. trade relations which was postponing efforts to prepare a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) round of talks to further reduce tariffs and other barriers to the free flow of goods and services, Pagrotsky said.
"They (the incoming U.S. administration) have a chance to make a difference," he said.
From an EU perspective it seemed as if the U.S. side had continually added new issues to an already lengthy list of trade disputes, notably over bananas, hormone beef and genetically modified foods, he said.
"They want more things to threaten us with to make us softer and not retaliate when we have the upper hand," Pagrotsky said, describing the U.S. approach as negotiation tactics.
On Monday, U.S. President Bill Clinton told visiting EU leaders a new transatlantic trade fight could erupt over what the U.S. side sees as European state funding of Airbus Industrie's A380 superjumbo-jet project.
The EU Commission said on Tuesday that the project was backed by repayable loans, not subsidies.
"We need fewer conflicts, not more conflicts...The world needs a better trade regime," Pagrotsky said.:
