“I Want Transparency on next EU-US Trade Negotiations”

European Commission’s President Juncker asks Members States and European Parliament a new mandate and to monitor the next Transatlantic negotiations TTIP between EU and U.S. . The two giants have more than €5,000.00bn/year of trade.

Last January, the European Parliament discussed the state of Transatlantic negotiations and the new EU priorities together with EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström.  (Here the video recording)

What happened?

After fifteen rounds, talks were stopped in October 2016. Since then, Trump’s Administration did not want to resume the negotiations and EU and U.S have fought on tariffs:

– Last June, U.S. introduced measures against steel and aluminium for €6.4bn.

– In July, EU introduced retaliatory tariffs on US goods for €2.8bn, including bourbon whiskey, motorcycles, boats, orange juice.

Since then, some “progress” has been made to relaunch the negotiating table.

For instance, removing some EU trade barriers was a gesture of goodwill on the European side? Or a surrendering to a blackmail of Donald?

This was discussed during the debate in the European Parliament. Notably, imports of U.S. soya beans by the European Union increased by 112% over the period July to December 2018, compared to the same period last year. The United States is now Europe’s main soya beans supplier and will soon be able to expand its market further, following the decision of the European Commission to launch the process for authorising the use of U.S. soya beans for biofuels.

Recent figures have also shown a steep rise in shipments of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) in October and November 2018. The EU has also identified a number of areas where voluntary cooperation on regulatory issues with the U.S. could yield quick and substantial results.

What’s next?

Last July, the European Commission adopted its position on the proposals for new negotiating directives: on conformity assessment and on the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods.

The European Commission, which is responsible for all trade negotiations, now affirms that as part of its commitment to transparency, decided to publish the draft mandate and is asking a green light from EU Member States.

The European Commission is at the end of its mandate and has failed on this negotiate with Donald, last years. Therefore the involvement of national governments is to secure future talks.

The most important issue of the mandate asked by the EU Commission is the faculty to suspend the negotiations with the United States, if they won’t abstain during the course of the negotiations from adopting new measures or restrictions against the European Union.

• Consult: EU-US Trade picture
• Pre-order your free copy: EU Draft mandate with all details and analysis