Brussels, 22/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The first conclusions of the working group set up to investigate a possible EU-United States free-trade agreement show great ambition.
The progress report on discussions conducted by the departments of US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht was submitted to US and EU leaders on 19 June. It shows “significant progress” in their joint analysis of “a wide range of potential options” for expanding transatlantic trade and investment. These include, but are not limited to: - elimination or reduction of conventional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff-rate quotas; - elimination, reduction, or prevention of barriers to trade in goods, services, and investment; - opportunities for enhancing the compatibility of regulations and standards; - elimination, reduction, or prevention of unnecessary “behind the border” non-tariff barriers to trade in all categories; - enhanced cooperation for the development of rules and principles on global issues of common concern and also for the achievement of shared economic goals relating to third countries. The experts came to the preliminary conclusion that “a comprehensive agreement … would, if achievable, provide the most significant benefit of the various options we have considered. A comprehensive agreement could include ambitious reciprocal market opening in goods, services, and investment, and address the challenges of modernising trade rules and enhancing the compatibility of regulatory regimes. Combined with increasingly productive US-EU cooperation on trade issues of common concern, such an initiative could promote a forward-looking agenda for multilateral trade liberalisation.”
The working group has, however, identified areas where further substantive work is needed. On tariffs, the goal is to eliminate all but the most sensitive duties in a short timeframe. Any future agreement will have to deal with the issue of a more integrated transatlantic marketplace with chapters of SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBT), and also horizontal disciplines on regulatory coherence and transparency for goods and services. The group recommends further opening of the services and investments markets, and improved access to government procurement opportunities at all levels of government. The report acknowledges that, with regard to intellectual property rights, “it would not be feasible in negotiations to seek to reconcile across the board differences in the IPR obligations that each typically includes in its comprehensive trade agreements”. The working group will now consult stakeholders before making a final recommendation to the next EU-US summit at the end of 2012. (EH/transl.rt)