Presseschau: Wiederaufnahme der Handels-Verhandlungen mit den USA

15. März 2019

INSIDE TRADE

EU negotiating mandate for U.S. talks expected to be tweaked ahead of adoption

„New conditions for trade talks with the United States could be added to negotiation mandates under consideration by European Union member states, including provisions on climate and the revocation of the EU Commission’s mandate for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, according to EU sources.

MEP Helmut Scholz, the INTA Committee coordinator for the European United Left-Nordic Green Left party, told Inside U.S. Trade the EU should be clear and transparent in insisting it will not negotiate on agriculture. He compared the EU’s sensitivity on agriculture to the U.S. sensitivity on procurement. The EU has sought access to U.S. state-level procurement.

Instead of focusing on those sensitivities, the U.S. and EU “should try to analyze what was the desire of the shared TTIP negotiations and then to re-think [what is] really necessary to organize the trade relationship in a way that can contribute to economic development, social development and environmental protection in those markets,” he said.

Upcoming parliamentary elections could impact the timetable for a U.S.-EU trade deal, Scholz said. Parliamentary elections take place in late May and a new Commission will be put in place by October. Malmström has said the EU could wrap up negotiates before a new Commission is installed if the U.S. is willing “to tango.”

Lange and Scholz both said the EU must negotiate with the U.S. on equal footing and not succumb to U.S. pressure fed in part by the Trump administration’s imposition of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs and its threat of auto tariffs…“

The full-text article can be found here.