Brussels, 15/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - Joseph Daul, who heads a parliamentary delegation of the EPP Group visiting the United States on 10-14 July, called for a common transatlantic market to be established. “Europe and the United States must respond to the same challenges: debt reduction and competitiveness. Our leaders must have the courage to take responsible and coordinated decisions to stabilise the economy”, Daul said during a meeting with John Boehner, President of the American Congress. During talks with Christine Lagarde and John Lipsky at the IMF, Daul also underlined the crucial role that the establishment of a common market could play in boosting growth and employment on both sides of the Atlantic. “Three percent more growth, hundreds of thousands of jobs: this is what is at stake. European and American parliamentarians must take this project on”, the leader of the EP Conservative Group told Congress. Euro-American cooperation in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the common struggle against terrorism were the subject of in-depth debate between the EPP delegation and the National Security Council. Daul was accompanied on his trip by his colleagues Othmar Karas (Austria), Ioannis Kasoulides (Cyprus), Marian Marinescu (Romania), Jaime Mayor-Oreja (Spain), Corien Wortmann-Kool (Netherlands) and the head of the EU-US delegation, Elmar Brok (Germany). (E.H./transl.jl)