The fourth round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will take place in Brussels from March 10 to 14.
Prior to that round, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and United States Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman will meet in Washington DC on February 17 and 18 to take stock of the negotiations to date.
The aim of this meeting will be for both Commissioner De Gucht and Ambassador Froman to assess progress made after the first three rounds of talks and provide their political guidance to the chief negotiators from both sides on how best to take forward the negotiations.
The EU-US negotiations for TTIP started in July 2013. The aim is to liberalise trade and investment between the EU and the US. It is expected to result in more jobs and growth and assist Europe in its long-term recovery from the economic crisis.
The EU and the US make up 40 per cent of global economic output and their bilateral economic relationship is already the world’s largest.
An independent study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, forecasts that an ambitious and comprehensive deal could see the EU gaining €119 billion a year once fully implemented. EU exports to the US could rise by 28 per cent, earning exporters of goods and services an extra €187 billion annually. Consumers will benefit too with an average family of four living in the EU being €545 better off every year.
The negotiations started in July 2013
The EU and the US have their eyes on more than just removing tariffs. Tariffs between them are already low (on average only four per cent) so the main hurdles to trade lie ‘behind the border’ in regulations, non-tariff barriers and red tape. Estimates indicate that 80 per cent of the overall potential wealth gains of a trade deal will come from cutting costs imposed by bureaucracy and regulation, as well as from liberalising trade in services and public procurement.
Improving regulatory cooperation will aim at creating similar regulations on both sides of the Atlantic rather than having to try to adapt them at a later stage. The goal is to build a more integrated transatlantic marketplace, while respecting each side’s right to regulate in a way that ensures the protection of health, safety and the environment at a level it considers appropriate. Both sides hope that by aligning their domestic standards, they will be able to set the benchmark for developing global rules.
Such a move would be clearly beneficial to both EU and US exporters, but it would also strengthen the multilateral trading system.