Jean-Luc Demarty, Director General for External Trade of the European Commission, gave the European Parliament's Trade Committee details of his administration's strategy for further negotiations with the United States on Wednesday 23 January.
In response to questions from MEPs, Mr Demarty clarified the objectives and framework for the negotiations of two agreements with the United States, on industrial products and conformity assessment, submitted a few days earlier to the EU Council for approval (see EUROPE 12175).
Timetable of the talks. If the mandates are validated without delay, negotiations could be concluded quickly, also thanks to the work already done in the failed TTIP talks. For Mr Demarty, the main difficulties reportedly concern cars, rules of origin - particularly for the textile and automotive sectors - and some US tariff peaks, including for the textile sector. The evolution of these talks could thus escape parliamentary control from April to July, during the European elections, as pointed out by Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany).
Agriculture. "The Congress is pushing for agriculture, but it is an absolute no-go” politically, Demarty said again. The experience of the TTIP has also shown the EU that the entities' red lines are absolutely incompatible: "We have seen there are no possible trade-offs", he said. Sanitary and phytosanitary issues are also excluded: "It is not a negotiation about our standards or our level of protection", he said.
Data protection. Mr Demarty also pointed out that discussions on data protection were not negotiable, and services were excluded from the discussions. "There might be in Davos the launch of a plurilateral negotiation on Friday. We hope there will be many participants, but not for this negotiation (with the US)”, he added.
Absence of a chapter on sustainable development. According to the Commission, not being in a traditional free trade agreement (FTA) absolves these agreements of references to the Paris Climate Agreement. "Legally... it is an FTA,... but not in political terms, it is more like a sectoral agreement than an FTA", Mr Demarty replied to Ms Kirston-Darling, (S&D, UK), who was surprised at the absence of any attractive provisions in the mandate proposals. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)