Brussels, 07/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - Although in the final staight, preparatory work for the EU-US negotiations is falling behind. Nevertheless the ambition and political resolve remain intact.
Initially hoped for the end of 2012, the final recommendations of the expert group responsible for the preparatory work for the free-trade negotiations between the EU and the US will still take a little more time. This preparatory work has been going on since 2011. The meeting between European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht and his American counterpart, Ron Kirk, in Washington on 5 February, enabled progress to be made on the discussion, the Commission's side suggested on Thursday 6 February. “Good progress has been made”, a source, quoted by AFP, stated firmly. At the end of January, De Gucht gave assurances that the final report was for the most part ready, adding that he was going to Washington to discuss a few small points and have a final read-through. He said that the two sides were essentially on the same lines and his staff confirmed on Thursday that the meeting “went well”.
The interim report that was delivered in June 2012 clearly defined the scope of the negotiations, which will include tariff liberalisation for goods, liberalisation for trade in services, access to government contracts, regulatory convergence and also rules on competition, the environment and intellectual property. Customs tariffs are already very low but their total liberalisation would enable large savings, given the volume of bilateral trade - which was worth €450 billion in 2011. On the US side, an agreement would enable the deterioration of bilateral trade to be partly limited - a deterioration that has been observed since the beginning of the millennium, and which is more to the US' disadvantage as they recorded a deficit in 2011 after exporting €184 billion to the EU and importing €260 billion. The crux of this issue lies in regulatory questions. According to one study, an agreement could result in gains in combined GDP of €180 billion over five years.
In search of sources of growth to accompany the exit from the crisis, Europe and America do not, however, want to embark on interminable negotiations. This explains the time taken to carefully limit the scope of negotiation for a future agreement - in order to ensure that the points of divergence do not derail the negotiation in the final stages. During the preliminary work, Europeans and Americans drew up their boundaries - GMOs, chlorine-treated chicken, cloning and cultural exception, on the European side. Agriculture, biotechnology, regulatory convergence in the health sector will demand much effort. Although the preparatory work has fallen behind, the objective of starting negotiations by the end of June still remains the same, so as to hopefully finalise an agreement in 18-24 months. Furthermore, the political resolve and ambition remain intact on both sides of the Atlantic, as the recent public speeches of American Vice-President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel prove. The day before De Gucht's visit to Washington, as a sign of goodwill, the EU also lifted its restrictions on the import of live pigs and beef carcasses cleaned with lactic acid. (EH/transl.fl)