Tripping over TTIP: Obstacles overshadow EU-US trade pact

Deutsche Welle ^ | 13.02.2014 | Emily Sherwin

[managusta]

This coming Monday (17.02.2014), EU trade chief Karel de Gucht and his US counterpart Michael Froman are scheduled to meet in Washington to discuss the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a transatlantic free trade area. They are expected to make a political assessment of the past three rounds of US-EU trade talks and to discuss the upcoming fourth round of negotiations in March.

The pact would unify standards and licensing procedures across a EU-US trade zone and would waive tariffs on goods traded between the EU and the US. According to the Munich-based IFO institute, the treaty will create up to 400,000 new jobs in Europe - 110,000 of them in Germany alone. A done deal, it would seem.

But there is another US trade deal running alongside the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that could pose an even more significant challenge to TTIP than policy details: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is a free trade deal just like its transatlantic counterpart.

It includes the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Chile, Canada, Mexico and Peru. Talks on the TPP began in 2010 and the trade pact will surely be on the agenda when US President Barack Obama meets his Canadian and Mexican counterparts next week.

[managusta]

These two Treaties are being negotiated in secret yet they will affect everyone.With Obama and Lurch on our side we are certain to get the nasty part of the stick.

[mac_truck]

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