Big push for EU-US trade deal in 2016

Any trade agreement between Europe and the US will at best take until the middle of next year to negotiate and could drift until the end of 2017, according to EU ambassador to the US David O’Sullivan. He was speaking at a seminar organised by the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin on Monday.

Responding to a question from the Irish Farmers Journal, O’Sullivan explained that the complexities with international trade negotiations made prediction of timing or outcomes impossible. It would need everything to fall into place easily and quickly to allow negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty to conclude this side of the US presidential election.

If this does not happen, then the change of administration would mean six to nine months of time gets lost. In that case, with the election in November and the new president coming into office in January 2017, it would be towards the end of that year by the time negotiations come to a conclusion.

Turning to beef, the ambassador was keen to emphasise there would be no compromise of EU standards to accommodate US hormone-treated beef. He explained that the US reluctantly accepted this position as part of negotiation. When asked about the possibility of beef being excluded from a trade deal, O’Sullivan gave the opinion that beef was such a large category that he couldn’t envisage it being left out of negotiations.

It is clear that a consensus has emerged among EU governments and their US counterpart that a trade deal between Europe and the US would be a good thing for business.

There are opponents, and an alternative view was presented by Tom Healy, director of the Nevin Institute. Healy’s focus was the need for an alternative view such is the enthusiasm of the Irish Government and the EU for TTIP.