Currently, Germany has Europe's largest economy. It is also the second most populated nation on the continent. Today Germany's economy is based mainly on technology. Although it is the largest economy in Europe and the fifth largest in the world, over the past couple years it has been the slowest growing economy in the euro zone with just 2.2% growth in 2006. Detailed German economic information can be found here. German chancellor Angela Merkel hopes to stimulate Germany's economy be implementing a German-US free trade zone. "Our economic systems are based on the same values," said Ms Merkel commenting on how similar Germany is economically to the US. Merkel says that implementing her strategy will not be as difficult as it may seem as Germany has learned many of the intricacies of the US economic system. Tariffs or custom duties are not part of this plan, and therefore it has been predicted that this program will be able to cut trading costs on both sides by 60%.
This program has met some stiff opposition as of late. European Commission ambassador to the US John Bruton recently said that a free trade zone would be unsuccessful. He stressed that there was already a large amount of free trade occurring between EU countries and the US. This obviously does not apply to agriculture, an area that is highly controlled and normally tariffed between countries. Bruton did concede that this is a good step forward and that progress is being made between the two economic leaders. Hopefully both sides will eventually be able to reach an agreement to help eliminate some of the costs that go along with strict trade regulation.
