No, TTIP is not dead in the water. It’s still steaming ahead, albeit at a reduced speed. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was never expected to be closed quickly or smoothly, so there is no need to panic about emerging roadblocks.
TTIP is about dollars and euros and how to make more of both. This is the same idea around which French statesman Robert Schuman and French economist Jean Monnet built the precursors of the EU in the 1950s. Others then extended the concept to include free movement of capital and labor and increasingly standardized rules and regulations for business. This lifted all boats and made Europeans richer.
If the chief business of the American people is business, as the adage goes, then TTIP speaks the language everybody in the United States understands. The sticking points, such as agricultural subsidies, European rules of origin, and the precautionary principle, will be on the table. Compromises will be struck in the name of the larger prize, which is more efficiency, lower prices, and higher wages.
Europeans have built the common market for acutely pragmatic reasons. Given the size of the transatlantic economy and the gravitas of the United States for technology transfer, innovation, and military ties, TTIP is an indispensable deal that offers gains for everyone. It will be hard to negotiate, will take a long time to clinch, and may include painful compromises—but it should be done.
The newly elected chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee is Bernd Lange, a veteran Social Democratic member of parliament with a German trade-union background. In his considered May 2014 policy paper on TTIP, he sees advantages for German car exports (no surprise for a member of parliament from export-driven Lower Saxony), but he also sets out a long list of demands: that U.S. states adopt International Labor Organization norms; that exports of certain scientifically engineered U.S. agricultural products be banned; and that EU data privacy be respected—with a sideswipe at the NSA revelations that have done such damage in Germany.
Read complete report: Judy Asks: Is TTIP Dead in the Water? - Carnegie Europe
TTIP is about dollars and euros and how to make more of both. This is the same idea around which French statesman Robert Schuman and French economist Jean Monnet built the precursors of the EU in the 1950s. Others then extended the concept to include free movement of capital and labor and increasingly standardized rules and regulations for business. This lifted all boats and made Europeans richer.
If the chief business of the American people is business, as the adage goes, then TTIP speaks the language everybody in the United States understands. The sticking points, such as agricultural subsidies, European rules of origin, and the precautionary principle, will be on the table. Compromises will be struck in the name of the larger prize, which is more efficiency, lower prices, and higher wages.
Europeans have built the common market for acutely pragmatic reasons. Given the size of the transatlantic economy and the gravitas of the United States for technology transfer, innovation, and military ties, TTIP is an indispensable deal that offers gains for everyone. It will be hard to negotiate, will take a long time to clinch, and may include painful compromises—but it should be done.
The newly elected chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee is Bernd Lange, a veteran Social Democratic member of parliament with a German trade-union background. In his considered May 2014 policy paper on TTIP, he sees advantages for German car exports (no surprise for a member of parliament from export-driven Lower Saxony), but he also sets out a long list of demands: that U.S. states adopt International Labor Organization norms; that exports of certain scientifically engineered U.S. agricultural products be banned; and that EU data privacy be respected—with a sideswipe at the NSA revelations that have done such damage in Germany.
Read complete report: Judy Asks: Is TTIP Dead in the Water? - Carnegie Europe
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