Strasbourg, 12/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Singled out by a consumer organisation, the federation of German industries (BDI) was obliged to correct its estimate, on Wednesday 11 March, of the gains to be expected from the transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP). The BDI had overestimated these gains ten times.
The real figure, as calculated in a study ordered from the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) by the European Commission, is a 0.5% gain in GDP for the whole EU ten years after the TTIP agreement enters into force - in other words nearly €119 billion by 2027, and not nearly €100 billion per year as the BDI had suggested on its website.
Foodwatch, one of the many German NGOs fighting against TTIP, criticised the “patent misinformation”. BDI is one of the biggest supporters of TTIP in Germany, where civil society's hostility to TTIP is one of the strongest - as noted by European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström during her TTIP promotion tour to Berlin at the end of February.
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel nevertheless stated her desire on 4 March to conclude an agreement by the end of 2015, as requested by the European Council in its conclusions of 18 December, and she guaranteed Germany's support to the Commission to achieve this.
On the very controversial issue in Germany of investment protection and an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, Merkel said she was confident that a balanced solution will be found, and she hailed Malmström's “very transparent” approach on this issue. “We call for sufficient clarity because this issue is not a point that will be relegated to the sidelines of the negotiations. It's a political point of priority”, Merkel had said.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that he would ask the EU heads of state and government at the spring European Council (19-20 March) for “clarification on their short and long term intentions” concerning the TTIP negotiations.
Despite the commitment of the 28 EU member states to conclude an agreement by the end of 2015, the thorny issues of the ISDS, of bringing standards on both sides of the Atlantic closer together, and of the liberalisation of services (and thus the risks for public services) feed the fears of some member states - which sometimes have ambiguous messages with regard to TTIP.
The eighth round of negotiations on the technical level was held in Brussels in early February (see EUROPE 11248) and the next round will be held in the US in April. (Emmanuel Hagry)