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11/4/13

EU-US to resume free trade talks despite NSA tension - data protection and online privacy rights questions major stumbling block - by Juergen Baetz

The United States and the European Union will resume free trade negotiations next week despite heightened tension between the two over the alleged spying activities of the U.S. National Security Agency.

The second round of the trans-Atlantic talks will have to make up ground lost when a previous session was canceled because of the partial shutdown of the U.S. government.

The European Commission, the 28-nation bloc's executive arm, said Monday that the talks will go ahead and that next week's round in Brussels is set to focus on services, investment, energy and regulatory issues.

A broad EU-US trade deal could provide a boost to growth and jobs on both sides of the Atlantic by eliminating tariffs and regulatory barriers that are hampering business. The trade volume in goods and services between the two economies — representing almost half of global output — totaled 800 billion euros ($1.08 trillion) last year.

While data protection and online privacy rights aren't officially on the agenda of the talks, top EU officials have made it clear that they will push for tougher rules in the U.S. in parallel to the trade negotiations.

Both sides had hoped initially to reach a broad agreement by the end of 2014, but that schedule is now considered highly ambitious as significant hurdles remain on issues like agriculture, industry regulation and other fields.

Read more: BRUSSELS: EU, US to resume free trade talks despite tension | Business | NewsObserver.com

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