Brussels, 12/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - A delegation to Washington from the European Parliament, led by Vital Moreira and Christian Ehler, has found an increasingly positive mood among their counterparts in Congress - both Democrats and Republicans - and in the different branches of the American administration, with regard to the future bilateral free-trade negotiations between the EU and the USA.
“Negotiations between the EU and the US towards a transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) require political will, intelligence, flexibility and imagination on both sides”, said chair of the European Parliament's committee on international trade, Vital Moreira (S&D, Portugal), in a press release published on 12 April. “What we learned from Washington is that there are no red lines on either side. While we're aware of differences, the message we received is that the US Congress does not want to highlight specific obstacles to the TTIP”, said co-chair of the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue, Christian Ehler (EPP, Germany).
Public procurement, services and agriculture are main pitfalls. Moreira and Ehler reiterate, however, the differences which await the transatlantic partners. Access for European companies to American public procurement, and to the American transport and maritime sectors, feature among the big challenges to be met. In general, opening up the transatlantic market will require overcoming the lack of common standards on goods, as well as requiring American and European financial services operators to conform to similar rules. “Each side knows what the limits of the other side are. We clearly articulated what our side perceives as issues. But to raise red lines or highlight expectations at this stage is not the right approach, as this would not create the right mood for a fruitful agreement”, said Moreira. Nothing is off the negotiating table, and it will be up to the negotiators to find out how far they can bridge the differences, Moreira adds. “Let it be clear that even if areas like agriculture and food and plant health standards are difficult, there is room for significant gains for either side without compromising inherent cultural limitations on both”, he stated.
Innovative ways for regulatory convergence. Moreira and Ehler reiterated that the complexity of the negotiations is linked more to regulation than to trade barriers. “Trade barriers are there but they are easily removable. That is not the case with regulatory barriers which are linked to culture, tradition, bureaucracy and vested interests. Their cost to our transatlantic trade is estimated in the region of 10-20% of their tariff equivalents. So it is important that we converge on regulatory standards, either through harmonisation or through mutual recognition in innovative or imaginative ways”, said Moreira. Convergence requires the negotiators to come to a workable mechanism which bridges constitutional asymmetries, such as those which exist between the powerful American regulatory authorities and European supervisory authorities, which - unlike their American counterparts - are not empowered to draw up rules. Unlike in the United States, European regulation is exclusively the prerogative of legislators - the Parliament and the Council, or the Commission via delegated legislation. On questions like mutual recognition of automotive safety standards, it is still to be seen how any principle agreed on a federal level would cover standards at state level in the United States. “This applies for other areas like public procurement. On areas such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, you would need a kind of collaboration between legislators which goes beyond what we have had in the past. We would need to have a mechanism that deals with future challenges. That is why TTIP negotiations are more complex than a traditional trade agreement”, Ehler said.
The European Parliament's delegation included Pawel Zalewski (EPP, Poland), Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl (EPP, Germany), Helmut Scholz (GUE/NGL, Germany), Peter Skinner (S&D, United Kingdom), Nora Berra (EPP, France), Jörg Leichtfried (S&D, Austria), Pablo Zalba Bidegain (EPP, Spain) and Marietje Schaake (ALDE, Netherlands). (EH/transl.fl)