Washington, 18/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - Charlene Barshefsky, representing the outgoing US Trade Administration, spoke on Thursday of the "troubling trends" in transatlantic relations. At the same time, she refloated the idea of creating a free trade area between the two continents and "why not, in the first years of this new century?". Ms Barshefsky, who was speaking before the Euro-American Trade Council in Washington, shortly before leaving her post, expressed concern about "stress" in these relations, generally very stable and even increasingly closer, caused by "structural issues, notably the evolving relationship between the European Commission and its Member States". "We often find, at least in practice, an opaque system and a vague demarcation of authority between the Commission and Member States that slow down the decision-making process and seem to place the Commission in difficulty when it is a question of altering policies - to make them comply with WTO verdicts or to take advantage of new opportunities that present themselves.", she said. the Executive's difficulty "in establishing a positive agenda that involves changes in European policies" may, she claims, "tempt some members of the Commission to define success as the frustration of American initiatives". But, "few temptations are as foolish or self-destructive", she warned, also to those of her compatriots who recommend an American disengagement from Europe. More that competition, Ms. Barshefsky, for her part, envisages between Washington and Europe a cooperative agenda for the decade ahead, focused on a "wider area of democracy and open markets, a trading system adapted to the "networked world", and a still closer transatlantic relationship."