Brussels, 24/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The ninth technical level negotiations session for a transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP) between the EU and US took place in New York this week from 20-24 April. At the end of their work, the European chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero said that the session had enabled new progress ahead of a political level review in the autumn. A tenth round is scheduled in Brussels in July.
On the regulatory cooperation pillar (including the horizontal and sectoral aspects) and on the rules pillar, the parties tried “to do as much as possible so as to prepare these areas for a joint political review after summer”.
On the rules pillar, “a significant step forward” was made on the issue of energy and raw materials. The parties examined how TTIP could guarantee non-discriminatory and transparent access for third parties to the energy transport infrastructure (gas pipelines and electricity grids). They also examined how to increase regulatory cooperation on energy efficiency. No conclusion has yet been reached on whether these issues will be the subject of a specific chapter.
As regards sustainable development, the EU is to put forward a text proposal before the summer.
On the market access pillar, the negotiators deepened their discussions in order to reach a better understanding of the respective tariff offers. On services, the negotiators are working on an exchange of revised offers by the next round. (Emmanuel Hagry)