The 15th round of technical talks on an EU-United States free trade agreement (TTIP), in New York on 3-7 October, enables significant progress to be made in consolidating the draft agreement in terms of regulatory cooperation, said European chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at a press conference at the end of the talks on Friday 7 October.
Bercero said the round had spent a great deal of time on regulation, including regulatory coherence – technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures – along with regulatory convergence questions in nine key areas of industry – cars, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, cosmetics, ITC, pesticides, engineering, medical devices and textiles.
Very encouraging progress was made in some areas, said Bercero, such as talks about updating the existing mutual recognition agreement for manufacturing best practice in the pharmaceuticals industry.
The negotiators will report the progress achieved this week back to their respective politicians - Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and US Trade Representative Mike Froman - who will decide on the next steps to take, said Bercero.
On the EU side, the EU trade ministers will examine the question at their Council meeting on 11 November. Meanwhile, representatives of the 28 EU member states will decide on the future of the talks at the European summit on 20-21 October. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)