Brussels, 19/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - With the 13th round of EU/US free-trade negotiations (TTIP) to start in New York and a forthcoming visit to Germany of the American President Barack Obama at the end of April, France, in the person of its Secretary of State for External Trade, Matthias Fekl, on Monday 18 April stressed its opposition to the “hurried” conclusion of a “light” agreement which would not satisfy the offensive interests of the EU in terms of access to public procurement and regarding geographical indications.
“The TTIP are entering a particular phase”, Fekl told a press conference in Brussels, where he was meeting members of the European Parliament, and ahead of meetings in Paris on Tuesday with the Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, and the American ambassador to the WTO, Michael Punke. “There is an American end-of-term temptation to work quickly to get it into President Obama's heritage and a willingness among some people, in Europe, to move quickly”, a source close to the dossier in Brussels told us. “A quick agreement is necessarily a bad agreement for France, and a bad agreement for France means that France will not sign” the TTIP, the French Secretary of State warned on Monday.
During his meetings on Monday and Tuesday, Fekl “reiterated France's lines in the sand”, in particular the need for access to American public procurement contracts, “both nationally and in the federal states”. However, there is “no desire among the Americans to move forward on both levels”, he said. In its offer, the US proposed six entities, some of which do not submit invitations to tender or whose opportunities in terms of public procurement are “somewhat limited”, a source close to the dossier explained. “The overtures made by the Americans are token”, Fekl stressed, pointing out that access to the American public procurement market was a “major offensive interest” for the EU, whose public procurement is more than 90% open, with this figure just 47% for the US. “It's clear that there is a problem of reciprocity and equality in access to the public order book”, Fekl stressed, adding that he doubted that there would be many developments on this dossier, given that Buy American and the Small Business Act are “virtually untouchable political symbols”.
Fekl also reiterated the offensive interests of France and the EU in agriculture, particularly regarding the protection of geographical indications, a subject on which the negotiations are not moving forward.
France also has high expectations for financial services, for which it wants to establish “very solid, binding standards”.
As regards regulatory cooperation, France has “no objections” to technical information exchanges on standards, but it wants the future joint regulatory cooperation body to be a “body with no decision-making powers”. Furthermore, Paris also wants reciprocity, whilst the negotiations underway are currently “asymmetrical”: “the US wants Europe to notify a lot more information than it is prepared to notify to the EU”, the French secretary of state criticised.
Lastly, Fekl reiterated France's desire for a “robust, offensive and future-proof agreement, which includes climate urgency and binding environmental rules”. “Four months on from COP 21, we cannot continue to have binding rules only for the commercial part and not for the environmental aspects. That is the spirit of the French proposal”, he stressed.
In total, “on all of these chapters, the conditions are long way from being met”, Fekl lamented. “Europe has multiplied its proposals and offers, but there is no serious American counter-offer on the table today”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)