Transatlantic Trade and Invest Partnership between USA and EU

16.07.2014

The sixth round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Invest Partnership (TTIP) between USA and EU started this week. At the European Parliament plenary session representative from European Commission, Karel De Gucht told MPs about the negotiation’s process.

The need of this speech before the Parliament is there because the last word in the formation of TTIP is for the Parliament that will held voting on the matter soon. Amongst MPs there are different opinions: some are the supporters of the idea, the other ones are against the agreement with USA.

As soon as negotiations will be over, the written reports will be published by both parties.

Due to the great attention from the public EU and USA try to make as much as possible documents available freely, but it is not always the case. So, the instructions from Council of Ministers given to the European Commission were not published.

Mr. De Gucht hoped that despite the differences in legal systems and in regulation of international relations including trade relations, and despite the various opinions of the public, the agreement between EU and USA will be concluded and it will be given the proper attention from the European Parliament.

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-549_en.htm?locale=en

Expert’s opinion

Two world giants. USA and EU unite their skills and experience in the partnership. It is relatively obvious and expected step that caught the attention from the whole international community. Especially this process is interesting for the business community, because substantial changes are made in the bank sector regulations. The well-known attack on European banks from FATCA, which destroys European traditions of bank secrecy, is one of the sides of EU-USA tandem. Whether these two serious international players will find common ground and the “golden middle” in the approaches to the international relations regulation only the time could tell.

Alexandra Mihno ( Lawyer, Honest&Bright)