EU-DIGEST: EU-US Trade Talks: More Hope Than Headway So Far in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks

3/14/14

EU-US Trade Talks: More Hope Than Headway So Far in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks - by David Jolly

European and American officials had hoped they could highlight progress on negotiations for a wide-ranging trade agreement when President Obama visits Brussels on March 26. But in talks here this week, frustration has been more evident than headway.

To take one example, when announcing the trade talks last year, leaders said that the agreement would seek to “eliminate all tariffs” on trade in goods between the United States and the European Union, as a step toward creating the world’s biggest bilateral trade zone. But this week, American negotiators accused Europe of seeking to exclude beef, chicken and pork products from tariff cuts.

What’s more, the two sides last year set out an ambitious timetable to get a deal done “on one tank of gas,” by 2015 at the latest. That is seeming to prove difficult.

The discussions are still at an early stage, of course. The talks this week in Brussels, led by L. Daniel Mullaney, the assistant trade representative of the United States, and by his counterpart for the European Union, Karel De Gucht, the trade commissioner, were only the fourth round. By contrast, talks for a grand trade pact with Asia-Pacific nations and the United States, announced in 2011, are already headed for their 22nd round.

But considering the ambitious objective — the creation of a tariff-free space in which, say, a drug approved in Europe would automatically be available for sale in the United States without separate clinical trials — the slow start suggests that the goal of wrapping up an agreement by next year is looking increasingly unrealistic.

Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the European Union’s chief negotiator, held a news conference on Friday with Mr. Mullaney, where both officials said they had made progress on the issues under discussion but stressed that it was still early going. They said that another round of talks would be held in Washington before the summer.