Increasing exports to Europe would boost the U.S. economy even as recession-battered Americans continue to pinch pennies, said John Bruton, European Union ambassador to the U.S.
“Savings rates are rising here, and that is a very good thing, but money being saved is not going to be spent in shops, so you have to find shoppers in other places. Europe is one of those places,” Bruton said in a telephone interview this week.
Bruton, 62, who served as Ireland’s prime minister during the mid-1990s, when the country became one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, will speak today at the Westin Tabor Center.
His talk launches a lecture series presented by the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence, which is devoted to research and study of the EU.
Created in 2008, the center on the Boulder campus is funded by a $450,000 grant from the European Commission and a $150,000 contribution from the University of Colorado.
The center provides grants to faculty members of universities throughout the Mountain West who teach EU-related courses or wish to create a new course focusing on the transatlantic relationship, said assistant director Myka Lee. It is one of 10 such centers in the U.S.
“The centers enable Americans to understand the EU better in many ways,” Bruton said. “We have learned a lot from the U.S. over the last three centuries, but Americans can learn a lot from us.”
The EU is the largest trading bloc in the world.
“So many producers and exporters want entrance to that market. Increasingly, when (the EU) sets a regulation, if a company wants access to that market they have to meet it,” Lee said. “So it is increasingly defining regulations internationally. The center acts to educate the public about what the EU is.”
It also provides American students who may take jobs at companies that compete in a global market a better understanding of the European environment, Bruton said.
Europe and the U.S. are joined in a relationship of “mutual ownership,” he said, with each holding a huge investment in the other.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
