Brussels, 12/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - The 150 negotiators and 24 working groups will meet again to discuss the nitty gritty of the issue in the second round of the negotiation, scheduled in Brussels in October.
Officially opened in Washington on 8 July by US Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman, the first round of the negotiations for a transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) came to an end on Friday 12 July with a press conference by the chief two negotiators, Dan Mullaney (US) and Ignacio Bercero (EU).
“The goal of this first round was to walk through all the major areas that may be addressed in this negotiation, share initial thoughts about how to approach each of these issues, discuss our priorities, discuss our objectives, and set up solid work teams to make substantive engagement in the second round”, Mullaney stated, welcoming the “very positive and substantive” engagement, shown by the two partners this week. “It's been a very productive week. The main objective has been met - we had a substantive round of talks on the full range of topics that we intend to cover in this agreement”, said Bercero. “The negotiators identified certain areas of convergence across various components of the negotiation and - in areas of divergence - began to explore possibilities to bridge the gaps. This paves the way for a good second round of negotiations in Brussels in October”, he added. The two men and their teams plan to meet in Brussels the week of 7 October, then in Washington at the beginning of December.
After a plenary session on Monday, 150 negotiators (divided into 24 negotiating groups) tackled all the subjects that will be covered - agricultural market access; competition; cross-border services; customs and trade facilitation; electronic commerce and telecommunications; energy and raw materials; environment; financial services; government procurement; intellectual property rights; investment; labour; legal/institutional issues; localisation barriers (local content requirements and subsidies for local goods utilisation); market access and industrial goods tariffs; regulatory coherence and transparency; rules of origin; sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures; sectoral annexes/regulatory cooperation; SMEs; state-owned enterprises; technical barriers to trade (TBT); textiles; and trade remedies (dispute settlement).
In market access areas (goods and services, investment, public procurement), the EU and US are still not at the stage of exchanging offers. However, this first round enabled constructive discussions on the architecture and the scope of chapters, the identification of existing market access restrictions, and in some cases the modalities for negotiating future commitments, said Bercero.
In regulatory areas, the discussions covered all aspects of the regulatory agenda, namely transparency and consistency, TBT, SPS and specific economic sectors. “We have agreed of the importance parallel progress on sectorial and horizontal regulatory issues, with a view to achieving an ambitious outcome. And indeed this should include concrete results to enhance regulatory compatibility in sectors and arrears of importance for transatlantic economies”, said Bercero.
Lastly, in areas related to trade rules (intellectual property, energy, competition, state-owned enterprises, trade facilitation, sustainable development, and the environment), the negotiators compared their respective approaches and in several of these areas they started to frame what could be the content of possible future chapters. On this point, their goal is twofold - to facilitate the bilateral trade relationship, but also explore the possibility of helping to build global standards, Bercero concluded.
Mullaney and Bercero reasserted Brussels' and Washington's joint desire to involve stakeholders (industry, consumers, academia and NGOs) in the negotiation process as much as possible. Over 350 representatives from civil society were thus able to be involved in the negotiations on 10 July this week. (EH/transl.fl)