14 March 2014

European Commission: TTIP - Fourth round of talks ends in Brussels

Steady progress in all three negotiating areas

Market access – here negotiators discussed three core elements - tariffs, trade in services and public procurement. On tariffs the EU and US had already had an initial exchange of offers. On services and public procurement, negotiators examined how to move towards exchanging offers.

Regulation - negotiators were joined by a broad cross-section of experts and regulators from both sides to discuss:

• regulatory coherence and increasing regulatory compatibility;

• technical barriers to trade (TBTs), on which both sides had already made written proposals;

• sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures – preparing the ground for written proposals in due course.

The EU and the US also continued to explore ways of achieving greater regulatory compatibility in certain key industries: pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, medical devices, automotive, and chemicals.

Rules – discussions included three areas where negotiators are developing innovative approaches:

• sustainable development, labour and the environment - to build on what is already covered by existing EU and US trade deals;

• trade in energy and raw materials - an area in which the EU wishes to include an agreed framework in TTIP;

• customs and trade facilitation - simplifying and streamlining procedures, especially important, since lengthy, complex customs clearance rules hit smaller firms the hardest and can deter entrepreneurs from selling overseas.

Next steps

Both the EU and US Chief Negotiators reaffirmed their commitment to making steady progress in all areas of the negotiations throughout 2014. They also agreed to hold a further round of talks in Washington before the summer. The European Commission will confirm the dates as soon as these have been fixed on the dedicated TTIP-webpages.

Press release

The Opportunities for-SMEs

The Financial Times (subscription) reports however that Germany has introduced a stumbling block to the negotiations by insisting that any pact must exclude a contentious dispute settlement provision. The “investor-state dispute settlement” mechanism, or ISDS, would allow private investors to sue governments if they felt local laws threatened their investments.

Earlier this year, the European Commission suspended negotiations over the ISDS clause to allow for a 90-day public consultation exercise, expected to be launched within days. That move was intended to help defuse some of the opposition and explain why an arbitration mechanism was needed. But opposition to ISDS has only grown since then. Now, in the biggest blow yet to those seeking its inclusion in the deal, Berlin has decided that it will push for the exclusion of the ISDS provisions in the deal. A spokesman for the economy ministry in Berlin said on Friday that the government had relayed its position to officials in Brussels, where negotiators have ended a week of talks over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Brigitte Zypries, a junior economy minister, told the German parliament that Berlin was determined to exclude arbitration rights from the TTIP deal. “From the perspective of the [German] federal government, US investors in the EU have sufficient legal protection in the national courts", she told parliament.

The German position pits Berlin against the Commission, the US and business groups. All of them argue that the transatlantic deal is an opportunity to update arbitration rights that already feature in existing bilateral investment treaties and are often open to abuse.

© European Commission