Nieuw kantoor in Washington moet wetgevende samenwerking EU-VS verbeteren (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - From the brand-new European Parliament office in Washington, Polish national Piotr Nowina-Konopka is seeking to increase co-operation between the US and EU legislatures, moving from the current formulaic contacts to practical exchanges between the law-makers representing 800 million people between them.
Although the EU and US jointly account for around half of the world economy and have the biggest bilateral trading relationship, the two chambers on both sides have so far, in legislative terms, broadly ignored one another.
The European Parliament's growing confidence in recent years, and now its power boost under the new Lisbon Treaty, in place since 1 December, has given its virtually the same stature as the US Congress in many areas and Washington has begun to notice.
According to Mr Nowina-Konopka, the catalyst for the change in the US capital's mindset was the parliament's decision earlier this year to reject, on data privacy grounds, a deal allowing US access to Europeans banking data to screen for terrorist activity.
"Few people really paid attention until Swift (the data deal) exploded. Then suddenly people saw this European parliament, who is able to say Yes or No, not conciliation, just Yes or No. So this wake call seems to be very healthy. I no longer have to explain from scratch how important the European Parliament is."
The liaison office - the first of its kind - was formally opened in April by the parliament's president, Jerzy Buzek i, and has a small staff of three administrators.
Mr Nowina-Konopka admits there is "still a way to go" in terms of getting access to Congress but sees his daily tasks as to keep law-makers on both sides of the Atlantic informed of what the other is doing. With the Swift saga not yet over - another deal is now in the making - future possible flashpoints include US demands for extensive air passenger data while both sides are carefully watching how the other seeks to regulate the financial sector.
In his new home city for around three months now, Mr Nowina-Konopka says he is struck by how distant relations have been in the past.
Getting to know one another
"I learn more and more with every week of my stay here how distant we used to be - how little our American counterparts know about the European Union and the European Parliament in particular. And this applies also to ourselves."
His chief goal is to make the ties more binding. There have been 12 visits by EU parliamentarians to Washington in the last year year, but the visits tend to be high on fanfare - or "parliamentary diplomacy" - and rather low on usefulness.
"I believe we are now entering another stage. Which should be much more down-to-earth, much more precise and detailed."
The Pole, a former activist with Poland's anti-Communist Solidarity movement, wants more exchange at committee level and at staff level - the simple act of getting to know the name and number of who is working on a particular issue. This kind of network can take years to build up, he admits. He wants working groups spanning both legislatures at staffer level and contact re-inforced through regular video conferences.
"What we encourage now in the European Parliament is to plan and design missions to US Congress with a very, very precise agenda with a legislative nature. We want to develop committee to committee relationships.
My concern is that after each such visit, something remain on the ground - for instance working groups composed of staffers from both sides."
His goal is to have "our American partners know more and appreciate more the need for closer co-operation on precise issues."
Speaking of the delegation visits he oversees, the talks in Washington's numerous think-tanks and academic institutions as well as the day-to-day monitoring of the two legislatures, Mr Nowina-Konopka notes he is unlikely to be "jobless" in the near future.