'A lot of work to do' after latest round of TTIP talks

EU and US negotiators still hope to conclude the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) this year, but geographical indications of agricultural products are among the sticking points.

Thomas Hubert

15 July 2016

'A lot of work to do' after latest round of TTIP talks

Dan Mullaney, lead US negotiator (left), and Ignacio Garcia Bercero, his EU counterpart.

European and American negotiators concluded their latest round of trade talks this Friday and renewed their commitment to have TTIP signed before the US presidential election at the end of this year.“We are now at an advanced stage of negotiations, but of course a lot of work needs to be done,” said the European Union’s chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at a news conference in Brussels this Friday. He added that he hoped to close the deal “with the current US administration, provided of course the substance is right”.

European and American negotiators concluded their latest round of trade talks this Friday and renewed their commitment to have TTIP signed before the US presidential election at the end of this year.

“We are now at an advanced stage of negotiations, but of course a lot of work needs to be done,” said the European Union’s chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at a news conference in Brussels this Friday. He added that he hoped to close the deal “with the current US administration, provided of course the substance is right”.

His US counterpart, Dan Mullaney, said: “An ambitious TTIP agreement is achievable in 2016 and this remains the objective of the US government.” However, he added that a number of hurdles must be overcome first.

While the two men reported progress on eliminating tariffs, with agreement in 97% of cases, they acknowledged that geographical indications (GIs) of protected agricultural products remained a difficult issue.

“I want to point out that, in the US, we have a robust system to protect GIs. European producers take advantage of this system to increase their exports to the US,” Mullaney said. But he added that while global exports of US agricultural products to the world were increasing, they have been stagnating or declining to the EU.

Brexit effect

The Brexit referendum has also affected negotiations, even though Garcia Bercero said it has not change the negotiators’ “determination” to close the TTIP deal.

“The economic rational for TTIP remains strong after Brexit,” said Mullaney. “At the same time, a withdrawal of the UK would affect the value of the EU market,” he added, acknowledging that the UK accounts for more than 20% of the US’s trade with the EU. He compared the effect of Brexit on TTIP negotiations with the US, announcing that California would not be covered by the trade deal.

Other sticking points include trade in services and the dispute resolution mechanism to be agreed under the proposed treaty.

Negotiating teams will continue to exchange documents resulting from the past week’s talks and aim to have a draft agreement in place by the end of September, with the most difficult issues remaining to be ironed out at the political level in the last days of Barack Obama’s US presidency.

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