At a meeting between the Eurocities vice-president, the mayor of Ghent (Belgium), Daniel Termont, and European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström on Monday 5 September, the big European cities’ organisation called again for clarification from the European Commission about aspects of the future free trade deal between the EU and the United States (TTIP) that will impact on cities – aspects such as public procurement, state aid, social, environmental and labour rules, and consumer, data and investment protection.
Recognising the potential benefits of TTIP in terms of job creation, growth and new opportunities for SMEs, the big cities raised a number of concerns.
First of all, European cities say they should be directly involved in the negotiations, and the European Commission should carry out a full impact assessment of TTIP on local government.
Eurocities says that public services should be explicitly excluded from the scope of the agreement, and the ‘positive list’ approach used to identify those services covered by TTIP should be used throughout the agreement to clarify which services are covered (e.g. in terms of market access, national treatment and most favoured nation).
Moreover, Eurocities calls for provisions relating to public procurement and state aid to remain within existing EU rules. It says the current thresholds of the EU public procurement directives should be safeguarded, as should the option to include environmental, social and fair trade criteria in public tenders.
Cities want EU and member state standards in the areas of social, labour, environment, and health and safety to be safeguarded and maintained. Finally, Eurocities says: "There is no need to create new judicial bodies for investor-state dispute settlements: EU national courts guarantee sufficient and effective legal protection". (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)