TRILATERAL REGULATORY COOPERATION MEETING UNDER

UNCLAS OTTAWA 003726 SIPDIS PASS TO COMMERCE FOR GERI WORD, OMB/OIRA FOR ALEX HUNT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD PGOV CA MX SIPDIS SUBJECT: TRILATERAL REGULATORY COOPERATION MEETING UNDER SPP: INFORMATION SHARING REF: OTTAWA 1199 ¶1. On December 9, Canadian, Mexican and U.S. officials met in Ottawa to discuss possibilities for regulatory cooperation under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The Canadians, who had proposed and organized the meeting, seem enthusiastic about the prospects for engagement under the SPP. The discussions focused on explaining the three countries' regulatory systems, and during the course of these explanations delegates noted similarities and differences. Mexico's regulatory system is different from the U.S. and Canadian systems (which are parallel in many ways),and this difference could pose challenges. ¶2. At the meeting, the participants agreed to provide comments by mid-January 2006 on Canada's draft proposal "North American Regulatory Cooperation Framework: The Way Forward" (for the USG, OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs representative will coordinate.) Participants anticipate the creation of a core working group by late January or early February. This core working group will focus at first on mapping out current cooperative arrangements between the three governments that can be used as examples and test cases in the SPP regulatory cooperation process. The core working group will also look at other frameworks (such as the U.S.-EU regulatory cooperation framework) for insights into trilateral options under SPP. At the meeting, participants tentatively agreed to plan a trilateral symposium for sometime in the Spring (March/April),to be held in either Washington, DC or Mexico. While representation at the symposium has not been decided (e.g. government, industry, academics or a combination thereof),participants were tasked with collecting suggestions of possible participants in the symposium. ¶3. The United States delegation was headed by Alex Hunt from the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA); Embassy and Department of Commerce officials also participated in the meeting. Mexican representatives included officials from the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa, from Mexico's Federal Regulatory Improvement Commission (COFEMER),as well as an official from the Mexican Office of the Treasury. The Canadians, who proposed and organized the meeting, included officials from the Privy Council Office, Industry Canada, and International Trade. Embassy econ staff also met with Ottawa-based representatives from this meeting at their invitation on December 14, to clarify the timeline for the proposed working group and regulatory cooperation framework, to further explore the role of the Canadian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulation, and to discuss general options for going forward. Visit Canada's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa WILKINS