In June, the White House announced a Transatlantic Economic Partnership biotechnology pilot project, which the Office of US Trade Representative (Washington, DC) will coordinate. A major aim of this project is to harmonize standards and reduce regulatory barriers through increased cooperation in conducting biotechnology product reviews before their commercialization. For instance, US and EU regulatory officials will compare product applications by examining documents of transgenic plant products that have already been reviewed. In addition, plans call for officials to monitor each other's processing of an application filed simultaneously in the US and the EU by a willing industry participant. The central goal is to build a more timely and transparent regulatory system in the EU, which industry representatives and US officials say will remove an ongoing trade irritant and contribute to potentially increased sales of innovative biotechnology products in the EU.