Belgium
says TTIP talks seem unbalanced, may need pause
Home | Trade &
Society | News
By EurActiv.com with
Reuters 5 sep. 2016 (updated: 5 sep. 2016)
Belgian Prime
Minister Charles Michel over the weekend became the latest European
politician to voice doubts over the possibility of the EU agreeing a
major new trade deal with the United States, saying in a newspaper
interview that negotiations might have to be abandoned for now.
“This treaty could
represent growth and jobs for Europe on condition that it is
balanced,” Michel said in an interview published in Belgian
business daily L’Echo on 3 September.
“What is on the
table doesn’t seem to be. So, for the moment, I prefer to say that
it’s not right and that perhaps we will resume negotiations later.
That said, there is an electoral reality in America. They are
campaigning.”
Washington and
Brussels are officially committed to sealing the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership (TTIP) before US President Barack Obama
leaves office in January, but serious doubts have surfaced.
Last week French
Trade Minister Matthias Fekl said he would request a halt to the
talks at an EU trade ministers’ meeting on Sept. 23 after German
Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel had declared that talks were “de
facto dead”.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMY
MINISTER ADDS HIS 'NEIN' TO TTIP DEBATE
Austria’s economy
minister has said talks on an EU-US free trade agreement should be
halted, adding his voice to an increasingly polarised debate on both
sides of the Atlantic over whether to keep the negotiations going.
Observers have said
Fekl and Gabriel are responding to public mistrust of the TTIP
proposals which critics say would lower environmental and food
standards and allow foreign multinationals to challenge government
policies. Both France and Germany are due to hold elections in 2017.
EU trade chief
Cecilia Malmström, who is in charge of trade negotiations for the
European Union, said last week she was surprised to hear the comments
before she had been able to brief trade ministers at the meeting in
Bratislava.
GERMANY SAYS TTIP
DEAD IN THE WATER
Germany’s Vice
Chancellor and Economy Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said yesterday (28
August) that negotiations on the so-called Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership – or TTIP – between the EU and the US were
effectively dead in the water.
EurActiv.com
“They are
advancing. They are difficult. We knew that from the beginning, but
they have not failed,” she told reporters, adding the aim was still
to conclude talks before President Barack Obama’s term ends in
January.
“That is still our
aim and if that is not possible it makes sense to make as much as
progress as possible,” she said. “It’s very difficult to say
this is a bad deal because there isn’t any deal yet. Nothing is
concluded until everything is concluded.”
KERRY TO EMBARK ON
EU ROADSHOW TO PROMOTE TTIP
US Secretary of
State John Kerry said today (18 July) that concluding the TTIP
agreement before the end of President Barack Obama’s term in office
remains his country’s priority, and that he was going to tour EU
countries to make this happen.
In the meantime the
shock of the closure of an American plant in Belgium reverberated in
the country. Heavy machinery maker Caterpillar Inc said it could lay
off about 2,000 employees at a plant in Wallonia, as it considers
shifting production to other facilities as part of a restructuring
program announced last year.
The company, which
manufactures construction equipment at the plant in Gosselies,
Belgium said it may shift the production to its facility at Grenoble,
France and other locations outside of Europe.
Caterpillar said in
September 2015 that it will cut as many as 10,000 jobs through 2018
and also might close or consolidate more than 20 plants around the
world as it grappled with the mining and energy downturn.
In July, Caterpillar
said that global uncertainty, the vote in Britain to leave the
European Union and the attempted coup in Turkey had heightened risks,
especially in Europe.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário