31/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - EU/United States, free trade faces challenge of regulatory convergence. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested, earlier in the week in Davos, that the EU should negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk underlined on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum how difficult it was to overcome the problem of standardising complex regulatory systems. (EH/transl.jl)