Brussels, 27/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and US Trade Representative Mike Froman are keeping up the political momentum in the free-trade negotiations between the EU and the United States (TTIP) to push the talks forward before summer, so that agreement in principle can be reached before the end of US President Barack Obama's term of office at the end of 2016.
At a meeting on the sidelines of the Hanover fair on Tuesday 26 April - their fifth since the start of 2016 - Malmström and Froman took stock of the ongoing TTIP process, as the 13th round of technical negotiations is taking place this week in New York.
The three strands of the talks - market access; regulation; and rules - were discussed, including the issues of access to public procurement and services markets, a Commission source close to the matter told EUROPE. “This complementing double track, at political and technical level, allows for faster progress to be made in the negotiations. Commissioner Malmström and her counterpart will remain in frequent contact - a new meeting is scheduled for the end of May”, the source said.
On Wednesday 27 April, the Commission published a report detailing the progress made in the TTIP negotiations, on the eve of the 13th round of talks. “The report shows that the negotiators are making good progress in many TTIP chapters, while significant strides remain to be made in some areas in order to have the main elements of a deal finished this year”, the Commissioner said.
The report is available at: http://goo.gl/S0dCGo . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)