Brussels, 06/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European negotiator in chief, Ignacio Bercero, spoke of “an important milestone” on the horizontal aspects of the regulatory cluster, at the end of the eighth round of talks in the EU-US free trade negotiations (TTIP) in Brussels on 2-6 February.
The two parties now have their respective proposals for the three horizontal disciplines - technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosantary measures, and regulatory coherence. “This is significant progress. The negotiators can now debate the texts of each in detail. They have this week been able to identify common points. From the next round, they will be able to be based on consolidated texts (…) to find common ground”, Bercero stated.
As regards regulatory coherence, the EU - which wants an entity to be set up which would ensure a continuous dialogue between EU and US regulators to guarantee regulatory convergence -presented its proposal to the US side this week and will make it public for stakeholders next week. This proposal highlights two elements - on the one hand, good practice in regulatory issues (such as impact assessments and consulting stakeholders), and on the other hand, improving regulatory cooperation through a “good system”, Bercero says.
The parties also continued their work on sectoral regulatory convergence and agreed to step this up by the summer break, at consultation sessions between the negotiation rounds. There are eight key sectors involved - pharmaceuticals, automobiles, chemicals, textiles, cosmetics, medical devices, engineering and pesticides.
As regards the market access section, “we managed, on the EU side, to reach a level of ambition that is particularly high on the three sectors” (tariffs, services and government procurement), Bercero stated. The two parties now have a “good mutual understanding” of the priorities and sensitive points of each. But while Bercero wants “to accelerate the debates” on the government procurement section, his US counterpart, Dan Mullaney, insisted on the need to progress on the tariff section.
Nearly all the aspects of the rules section were addressed - work and the environment (on which the EU continues to want an ambitious sustainable development chapter); energy and raw materials (an aspect on which the opinions of the two parties continue to diverge, with the EU wanting a separate chapter while the US is reluctant about this); rules of origin; customs and trade facilitation; intellectual property (including geographical indications); and SMEs.
By contrast, the negotiations on investment protection remain frozen while awaiting the debate within the EU on including an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism - which the US wants.
Two new rounds are planned before the summer break - one in the US in April, which will be accompanied by a workshop on SMEs, and the other in Brussels in June. (EH)