Brussels, 13/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - One of the main challenges of this session in Washington will be to know whether the Americans want to exclude regulation of financial services.
The EU and US negotiators, Ignacio Bercero and Dan Mullaney respectively, and their teams, will meet again in Washington on 16-20 December for the fourth round of negotiations for a transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP).
All the themes - divided into 24 negotiating groups - will be addressed: access to the agricultural market, access to the industrial products market, textiles, competition, cross-border services, customs and trade facilitation, e-trade and telecommunications, energy and raw materials, intellectual property rights, the environment, financial services, public procurement, investment, labour, barriers to establishment (requirements for local content and subsidies for use of local products), regulatory coherence and transparency, sectoral annexes and regulatory cooperation, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), technical barriers to trade (TBT), SMEs, state enterprises, and dispute settlement.
This negotiating session is an important time for the issue of whether or not to include financial services in the TTIP negotiation, according to an EU source close to the file. “We will explain why it is important not only to deal with the traditional issues of market access but also to set out a framework for regulatory cooperation. We want to guarantee a high level of risk-based capital rules and standards for each of the parties”, a Commission source says. The US government is not convinced that financial services must be dealt with in the TTIP but, rather, outside it because the financial services regulation is international. The Commission wants to ensure better cooperation between the regulators on each side of the Atlantic through the TTIP.
As for the rest, the parties will try to make progress on each of the themes. With regard to market access, the exchange of tariff offers will not happen until the beginning of 2014. The parties are due to agree on a date at the start of the year with regard to goods. With regard to services, the parties must still discuss the positive and negative lists. As regards public procurement, which is one of the most difficult chapters - with the US applying a national or local preference, of the Buy American type, at the federal level and at the level of the states - the European side will this week point out “the elements where it wants an improvement”. Lastly, an exploratory discussion is expected on the settlement of disputes and the protection of investment - with the European party wanting to ensure that the approach chosen does not challenge the right of states to legislate and regulate on social and environmental issues. (EH/transl.fl)