Brussels, 02/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - In an interview with French daily newspaper Le Figaro on Friday 2 October, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström states that the 11th round of negotiations for free trade between the EU and US (TTIP), taking place in Miami the week of 19 October, will be “the beginning of the political phase” of the transatlantic talks - with the beginning of the discussions on tariffs in October, then on public procurement in early 2016.
“The real discussion on customs duties will begin in Miami. Each side will put its offer on the table… This will be the beginning of the political phase: tariffs in October, and public procurement at the start of next year. We will keep the member states very carefully informed”, she said.
Malmström also says she is more in favour of the substance of the future agreement than the timetable. “Have we lost time? I don't believe so. Will it be possible to conclude an agreement (before the end of US President Barack Obama's mandate in January 2017)? It is too soon to tell. But we certainly want a robust trade treaty, not an agreement negotiated in a hurry”, she underlines.
Concluding an agreement before the end of 2015 “has never been realistic”, Malmström states. “Negotiating an agreement with Canada took five years. With the United States, we have been negotiating for two years and the treaty should be even more ambitious. There is progress and we are making headway, but we are not going to conclude before Christmas. Discussing technical standards takes an enormous amount of time”, she says, adding that she expects a breakthrough on “very concrete areas”: cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, machinery, automobiles, textiles and chemicals. “For much, it is a case of standards, of safety, of mutual recognition”, she adds.
Malmström also responds to the doubts shown by France this week. Believing that the US has not made “any serious offer” thus far, French Secretary of State Matthias Fekl warned at the start of the week that France was not ruling out any option - including a halt to the negotiations. “I have spoken about this with him, to explain that it is making headway, in all areas. We are not yet able to move forward with concrete elements but we shouldn't assess the results of a negotiation midway”, Malmström states, saying that “no member state has asked to stop the talks”.
As regards the chapter on public procurement, which is one of the EU's major areas of offensive and a very sensitive area for the US side, Malmström says that the EU is trying, for the benefit of European companies, “to limit the exemptions” to the Buy American Act, “which is a century old and which the Americans will not abolish in full presidential campaign”. “In the United States, decisions cannot be taken at the federal level - unlike for the agreement with Canada. We need to adapt to this reality. The EU will have to negotiate with two levels - the federal state and the federated states”, she says.
Asked about the Volkswagen scandal of cheating on emissions tests, Malmström says she believes “the credibility of the Europeans has been damaged by this affair”. “I have spent two years telling the Americans that Europeans will be unrelenting on standards and controls because this is our culture. Volkswagen has cheated, and we are not yet able to measure the price of this”, she says. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)