Following the meeting of the trade ministers of the EU, in Bratislava on Friday 23 September, Slovak Minister for the Economy and President-in-exercise of the Council Peter Ziga admitted that concluding the EU-US free-trade negotiations (TTI) before the end of the term in office of the American President, Barack Obama, at the beginning of January 2017, was not a realistic option.
Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom also said that this appeared increasingly unlikely. "However, the negotiations are continuing", she underlined.
"It is true that the negotiations are difficult and there is still a lot remaining, so the likelihood of a quick conclusion is of course becoming smaller and smaller", she told a group of journalists earlier in the day. "But it makes all the sense in the world continue to talk and to make as much progress as possible, as our leaders have all confirmed in different statements from the European Council and the G7, the G20, etc", she added.
European and American negotiators will meet in New York for a 15th session of technical level talks from 3 to 7 October.
In a round table on Friday morning, at least 20 ministers said that they were in favour of continuing the negotiations, a community source told us.
Twelve member states – Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Sweden – openly gave their support in an open letter last week.
On Friday, Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands, on the other hand, expressed clear support for the idea of putting the EU-United States free-trade negotiations on ice, to provide a bit of thinking time on what to do next on this enormous exercise, once the next American administration is in place next year.
"It would be wise to put TTIP on mute and relaunch it under a new name, with greater transparency and clearer objectives", Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said on Friday morning. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)