mr president i particularly welcome this report and i share some of the points that were raised just now but perhaps we should start off by formally congratulating mr obama on becoming president
i do not think that we have all done that here today but it is quite clearly a breath of fresh air for what we hope will be a very positive relationship with the united states
we are very quick to point out how that relationship can work for us of course but we do not point out quite so often what we have to do to strengthen it and work within it
for example trade between us according to the oecd is the largest between any two trading blocs anywhere in the world
it is right that it also causes us to think hard about regulation and supervision
anything that is decided between us both economically and politically is of great importance to the rest of the world and often sets the global standards
i as a member of the us delegation working on the transatlantic economic council hope that we can take further the work that we have already done there and transpose that into real efforts within this house instead of seeing some of the silly efforts from some on issues like chicken which help blight that particular relationship
