"..."old Europe" is now wielding new world power.

"Just this year, US manufacturers of such goods as chemicals, cars and cosmetics have been confronted with EU regulations that force a choice: Either conform to the EU's standards of pre-emptive screening for toxicity--far tougher than US standards--or risk sacrificing the European market, which, with 450 million people, is now larger than that of the United States. In the process, the European Union is challenging US presumptions of unilateral decision-making...

""Americans are in for a rude shock," says Clyde Prestowitz... "Other players are establishing their own standards, and they have the muscle to make them stick. We are headed into a new era"...

"...REACH--Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals... threatens a revolution in chemical regulation--upending decades-long practices that were pioneered in the United States...

"The REACH directive represents an upheaval in the basic philosophy of chemical regulation, flipping the American presumption of "innocent until proven guilty" on its head by placing the burden of proof on manufacturers to prove chemicals are safe--what is known as the "precautionary principle." REACH adds extra bite with a requirement that toxicity data be posted publicly on the new agency'w website. Thus, test results that were once tightly held by chemical companies will suddenly be available to citizens and regulators across the globe. That prospect foreshadows trouble for ES chemical producers...

"Never before has an EU proposal drawn fire from such heavy guns. The US chemical industry, like other American industries, has been discovering that a presence in Brussels is now a must--and has had to learn new ways to exert influence in a governing institution with three chambers, twenty-five countries and twenty national languages, and in which the usual cocktail of campaign contributions, arm-twisting and seduction are neither warmly received nor, in the case of campaign contributions, legal...

"The [US] lobbying campaign has largely backfired...

COSMETICS

"Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor any other government agency regulates ingredients used in the preparation of cosmetics. The Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1938 established extraordinarily lax standards for the regulation of cosmetic ingredients...

"The improvisational nature of the cosmetics industry is about to change. EU member states submitted plans to the European Commission to institute new guidelines established by what's known as the "Cosmetic Directive," which takes effect this coming February. The directive calls for the removal of ingredients suspected of causing "harm to human health" from cosmetics and personal care products in Europe. The effects of that directive are being felt around the world...

CARS

"EVery year aging cars left to decay in scrapyards or fields or suburban driveways, create more than 15 million tons of waste across the United States and Europe. Many components in those autos contain toxic ingredients, including metals... Cars and their component parts are left to despoil the landscape, leach into the soil and poison groundwater. There is nothing to stop them.

"Across the Atlantic, the EU has implemented a program with the oddly philosophical title "End of Life Vehicles Directive." Starting in 2006, all cars produced or sold in the EU must be built with at least 85 percent recyclable components; by 2015 that figure rises to 95 percent. The directive also bans toxic heavy metals like cadmium and requires that manufacturers take responsibility for disposing of their cars...

"For US car manufacturers, the directive presents a historic challenge. American car companies export virtually no cars to Europe; thus US manufacturers are under little direct pressure to adapt to European standards. But each of the US Big Three has substantial ties to the Euripean market: Ford has its own Ford Europe production facilities and owns the Jaguar line in Britain...

"The concept of being responsible for the ultimate disposal of those cars has been received in this country like a message from another planet...

"...today's European Union. For the first time in history, a superpower has emerged that is not based on nationalistic ambitions or military power but upon a voluntary sumission of national aspirations to a transnational authority...

"On foreign affairs, Europeans continue to have trouble speaking with one voice... But on domestic matters, the EU speaks for Europe...

"Indeed, a broad spectrum of American industry has already felt the potency that comes from an integrated market and differing standards of environmental and consumer protection. Microsoft, for example, was fined $497 million earlier this year by the EU for its "anti-competitive practices," and General Electric's long-planned takeover of Honeywell was skewered in 2002 by the EU's Competition Commission, which has now emerged as a critical first stop by corporations en route to a merger...

"...as Europe becomes a more assertive political force, the question will become..."Why shouldn't Americans enjoy the same standards as Europeans?"

"Such a basic question used to run in the other direction, when the United States set the gold standard for the world's environmental health. And the answer strikes at the core of the Bush Administration's most savored narratives--that we, alone, are masters of our nation's fate" (Mark Schapiro. "New Power For 'Old Europe'." The Nation, Dec. 27, 2004: 11-16).

"...the European social model. That model insists there are public goods--culture, education, environment, health--that cannot be measured by criteria of profitability... the introduction of the euro was part of a bargain in which EU nations renounced making full employment a top priority...

"... belief in the necessity and morality of public control of the market a central theme of European politics. Society prospered, culturally and materially. Now, a newly combative European capitalism has counterattacked" (Norman Birnbaum. "Europe by, and for, Itself." The Nation, March 7, 2005: 18-24).