At an annual event celebrating Europe Week, Atlanta's seven sister cities from the European Union were honored as proof of the solid economic and political relationships the U.S. enjoys across the Atlantic Ocean.

Hosted by the Consulate General of Belgium and the European Union Center of Excellence, an EU-funded center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the May 13 dinner aimed to highlight the long-standing cooperation and shared values of the U.S. and the EU, which together account for nearly half of the world's economic output.

Members of the local consular corps and representatives from sister-city committees attended a cocktail reception preceding a dinner speech by Ambassador Angelos Pangratis, head of the European Union's delegation in Washington.

More than 200 people attended the event at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, said Teri Simmons, chair of the Atlanta Sister Cities Commission, which promotes the relationships with 18 cities, seven of which are in Europe: Nuremberg, Germany; Salzburg, Austria; Toulouse, France; Brussels, Belgium; Bucharest, Romania; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom; and Ancient Olympia, Greece.

These relationships help build Atlanta's global profile at a time when cities' economic prospects are becoming increasingly dictated by their international integration, said Ms. Simmons, a partner in charge of the immigration practice at Atlanta law firm Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.

“It really does promote business development and exchange, and I think that's something that is very important right now,” she said.

Though the EU Center hosts Europe Week annually, this year was the first in which the center honored those who work to keep sister-city relationships afloat, said Vicki Birchfield, the center's director.

It made sense, as the sister cities provide footholds for Atlanta in Europe, which will remain the most important economic partner for the U.S. for the foreseeable future, she said.

Even as the world's attention shifts to emerging markets like India and China, Europe remains by far the largest investor in the U.S. Over the past decade, European firms accounted for more than three quarters of all foreign direct investment in the U.S., a total of $1.2 trillion, Dr. Birchfield said.

“U.S. affiliate income from China and India combined in 2008 was nearly 20 percent less than U.S. earnings in Germany alone,” she told GlobalAtlanta. “There is no other commercial partnership that is as closely integrated as that of the EU and U.S., and that is not going to change anytime soon.”

According to a copy of Dr. Pangratis' prepared remarks, the ambassador focused on the vitality of the trans-Atlantic economic partnership. With more than 800 million consumers accounting for 40 percent of global trade, the EU-U.S. relationship remains "the key driver of globalization." Still, Dr. Pangratis called for the powers to work together further to promote common values like free trade, human rights and nuclear non-proliferation.

His speech came less than a week after the European Union and the International Monetary Fund passed a nearly $1 trillion stabilization plan to help Greece and other member countries make payments on their mounting national debts.

In an interview with GlobalAtlanta, he said the package proves the EU's "solidarity" as it works to build safeguards to prevent similar debt crises in the future.

He predicted that the crisis will bring the U.S. and EU even closer together. In this context, personal links, such as those established through sister city programs, are more valuable than ever, he added.

"They are extremely important," he said. "They are preparing the future as it should be, a future where the EU and the U.S. become every day more and more closely connected, working on the big challenges of humanity, only one of which is the financial crisis."