The Brussels-based vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce, Peter Chase, said every single economic study he has read shows that there are going to be net benefits from the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) “of a substantial order of magnitude”.

“It stands to reason. The US and the EU have an investment based relationship. The US has $2.2 trillion (€1.6tr) invested in the EU and employs over four million Europeans directly in those investments. Europeans have $1.7 trillion (€1.2tr) invested in the US and also directly employ four million Americans,” he told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“If you reduce costs of shipping goods from one place to another, you are going to improve the global competitiveness of the firms and reduce costs for both sides.”

A European Commission study talks about 28 per cent growth in exports between the US and the EU. Another says that if you simply remove tariffs, exports after five years would be 17 per cent higher than they would have been.

But perhaps the most important aspect of TTIP is that it will not cost anything – governments normally have to spend money on stimulus packages to create jobs and growth.

Most articles on the TTIP, which has just completed its fifth round of negotiations, say the impact would mean €545 savings for each household. But the models for economic growth range widely, from a 0.4 per cent increase in EU GDP to almost one per cent.

But Mr Chase believes that the point is that no one actually disputes there will be growth, no matter of what magnitude.

The same applies to the creation of jobs. The Seattle-to-Brussels Network claimed that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) resulted in the loss of 900,000 jobs, for example, but Mr Chase said these were probably gross losses.

“Over 50 per cent of US goods are traded with 17 Free Trade Agreement partners. These treaties have dramatically opened up countries’ markets to US exports.

“Change always means shifts in any economy. Look at the figures. How many were migrant workers? Agricultural produce can now come directly from Mexico.

“And how many jobs were gained? Where were the increases? In general, the average wage level associated with EU and US investments tends to be considerably higher than overall. So trade agreements like these are going to create good jobs,” he said.

“And we are talking potentially about hundreds of thousands of new net jobs. People are going to be affected and the role of governments is to help manage and mitigate any dislocations that naturally come with growth.This is why in Europe and the US, we have trade adjustment assistance programmes.”

But in spite of the improved competitiveness, economic growth and net job creation, TTIP still manages to generate reams of conspiracy theories and criticism. The main three aspects that have raised online hackles are that the negotiations are not transparent, that the dispute resolution procedures will give too much power to companies, and that the US will insist on the EU allowing more genetically-modified foods.

All these points were dealt with effortlessly by Mr Chase during a recent seminar organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Malta.

“You have to distinguish between negotiatiors listening to stakeholders as they build their positions for the negotiations and the negotiations themselves. Negotiations are almost always held behind closed doors. The reason is that everyone starts with their position knowing that they are going to be compromising in order to reach a deal.

“I don’t think it is a matter of lack of transparency because in the end, the text that is agreed will need to be brought to the public and approved by all the EU member states and then ratified by their parliaments, according to which part is in their competence,” he said, adding that there was a wealth of information already being made available by governments, the US and the European Commission, which intends to publish everything sent as feedback from the consultation under way, particularly with regard to investment provisions.

There are also concerns about the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. Mr Chase said the concern in Europe mirrored a similar debate in the US. President Barack Obama had asked for a review of the US model investment treaty and the ISDS when he came to office, but after three years of extensive discussion with all the stakeholders, the new model investment treaty was virtually the same as the one approved in 2004.

“EU member states have almost 1,400 investment treaties – Germany alone has 131 and the UK has 120 – and all have the same type of obligations and enforcement mechanisms.

“The first thing to understand is that the enforcement mechanism, including ISDS, can only be used with respect to the obligations in the treaty. Both countries agreed they would not discriminate against the investors of the other party based on nationality, that we would provide fair and equitable treatment for protection and security – a minimum standard of treatment and due process, and that in the case of an expropriation it would only be for public purpose, non-discriminatory and with payment of quick and effective compensation; the fourth aspect is that capital related to the investment can flow in and out.

The role of TTIP in regulatory differences is to find ways to build bridges between them

“The question is why do we need an ISDS? Why can’t we just rely on domestic courts? Investors can go to domestic courts but there is a legal problem in many jurisdictions – such as the UK – as international treaties are not integrated into domestic law. If you go to a domestic court, it has to uphold domestic law even if it is inconsistent with an international obligation.

“That is why you need to have an international public law mechanism to enforce an international public law obligation.”

The World Bank set up the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), for this very reason, as investment disputes differ from trade disputes.

“When a country erects barriers to trade, it affects a class of people who are exporting to that country. If I am an investor and I am putting my capital in your jurisdiction, it affects only my investment.

“ISDS has two aspects: it enables the investor to bring a claim. But it also enables the home country not to get embroiled in the dispute,” he said.

He insisted that ISDS actually supports the interests of smaller investors who might find it harder to get their government involved.

A study by the German BDI on ICSID showed that of 540 cases, 37 per cent were from small to medium companies and investors. Of the 244 cases where the outcome is known, 42 per cent were won by the government, 31 per cent by the investor and 27 per cent were settled.

He was just as uneqeuivocal about GMOs. Various NGOs are concerned because the US has no register, while the EU has one – and only 55 products have so far been approved.

“The US government has made it quite clear that it has no intention of trying to change the EU’s own very robust science system and scientific assessments of new GMO products.

“We have very different approaches but we are not going to use this agreement to change the regulatory systems, specifically in the context of GMOs. What is interesting is that there is a backlog of approvals in the European Food Safety Agency and it is interesting that the ECJ has itself recently ruled this year that the EU approvals system is too slow.

“I think they might discuss whether there is a way to move approvals more quickly. But there is no intention of changing the scientific basis on which this process is done.

“Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration of the US goes through a very deep scientific assessment of each drug it allows onto the American market much more slowly than is done here. So they are often available in Europe before they are available in the US. Europeans could insist that the FDA should do more, but we are not going to do that!

“We have to respect each other’s respective regulatory systems. The role of TTIP in regulatory differences is not to change each other’s systems but to find ways to build bridges between them.”

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