On 13 February a joint statement was issued by President Obama and the EU's José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy committing them to negotiations on a transatlantic 'trade and investment partnership'.

The statement read: "The transatlantic economic relationship is already the world's largest, accounting for half of global economic output and nearly one trillion dollars in goods and services trade, and supporting millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic."

The announcement followed a recommendation by a 'High-Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth', co-chaired by US trade representative Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht in Washington DC.

The statement continued: "We are committed to making this relationship an even stronger driver of our prosperity. In that regard, we welcome the High Level Working Group's recommendations on how we can expand further our transatlantic trade and investment partnership, promoting greater growth and supporting more jobs.

"Through this negotiation, the United States and the European Union will have the opportunity not only to expand trade and investment across the Atlantic, but also to contribute to the development of global rules that can strengthen the multilateral trading system."

To that end, the new partnership will aim to go beyond the classic approach of removing tariffs and opening markets on investment, services and public procurement. It will also focus on aligning rules and technical product standards which currently form the most important barrier to transatlantic trade. Studies show that the additional cost burden due to such regulatory differences is equivalent to a tariff of more than 10%, and even 20% for some sectors, whereas classic tariffs are at around 4%.

In a speech the following week, Mr De Gucht said: "A future deal between the world's two most important economic powers will be a gamechanger. Together, we will form the largest free trade zone in the world. This deal will set the standard – not only for our future bilateral trade and investment but also for the development of global rules."

The announcement was broadly welcomed by commentators and economic experts on both sides of the Atlantic, notwithstanding a number of words of caution from various sources.

Philip Whyte of the Centre for European Reform wrote: "Past attempts to lower the barriers that impede trade and investment across the Atlantic are a story of rising ambition, but frustratingly elusive results. So why bother? Part of the answer is that the scale of the transatlantic economy makes the effort seem worthwhile. Despite the rise of China and other emerging economies, the transatlantic axis remains the largest bilateral commercial relationship in the world."

It is better, he wrote, to achieve the possible than to aspire to the unachievable.

"In negotiating a transatlantic trade deal, the EU and US should not allow the best to be the enemy of the good: better to focus on credible objectives and deliver than to be too ambitious and fail," he wrote.

From a (UK) legal perspective, Jonathan Goldsmith of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe wrote in the Law Society Gazette: "Free trade is like human rights, one of those items that everyone pontificates about when it relates to other countries, but where the discussion grows uncomfortable when we talk about its implementation at home."

He raised the spectre of European lawyers being reluctant to allow free movement to US lawyers when the US has no unified system of regulating legal practice, and a similar prospect of US lawyers being reluctant to allow what they see as practitioners of an inferior system allowed free rein in the US. He stressed that he was making an assumption that legal services would form part of the agreement, which is not known.