US, EU Moving Dial Forward on Customs in TTIP, but Some Areas Still Sensitive
The U.S. and EU are close to reaching a deal on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership regulatory compatibility and customs provisions, but negotiators still expect rigorous negotiations ahead in areas including government procurement, geographical indications (GIs) and market access, the chief TTIP negotiators from the EU and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said during an Oct. 7 press call. On the last day of the TTIP negotiating round in New York, both Dan Mullaney, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East, and Ignacio Garcia-Bercero, a director in the European Commission Directorate General for Trade, said that henceforth negotiators will primarily focus on advancing areas of consensus within the ongoing text, but Mullaney indicated they aren’t excluding more sensitive areas from negotiation, either.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Negotiators worked to bring U.S. and EU approaches toward textile rules of origin “closer together,” and also discussed regulatory compatibility in that sector, Mullaney said. Garcia-Bercero said ongoing textile negotiations have been productive. The U.S. proposed texts including textiles, rules of origin, automobiles, intellectual property and trade remedies before and during the round, Mullaney said. The EU proposed a textile chapter in July.
Progress in areas including technical barriers, and regulatory compatibility in the automobile, pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors, has allowed negotiators to close in on "a range of steps" to harmonize regulatory systems and customs controls, Mullaney said. Garcia-Bercero said that, in addition to spending a lot of time discussing regulatory coherence, technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, negotiators had a “very brief” GI discussion, but Mullaney said negotiators planned to discuss the issue further on Oct. 7. The EU’s push to include GIs in TTIP was one of several concerns Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, raised to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman about ongoing negotiations (see 1610040016).
Negotiators didn’t anticipate progress on government procurement provisions, so they omitted the topic from discussions, Garcia-Bercero said. Yet negotiators did discuss creating a TTIP regulatory body to meet once a year to review execution of TTIP commitments, look for new areas of regulatory cooperation and engage with stakeholders. He said the forum would comprise domestic government leaders and wouldn’t involve any “supranational” institution.
Mullaney and Garcia-Bercero brushed off questions about the timing of discussions, which were intended to conclude by the end of 2016. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom last month said it’s now unlikely to happen (see 1609260023). Garcia-Bercero underscored the merits of a balanced, comprehensive agreement, as opposed to a rushed deal, and Mullaney cited a need to effectively communicate TTIP’s benefits as anti-trade political rhetoric swirls around the world. “We have been negotiating this agreement now for three years,” Garcia-Bercero said on the call. “If you consider the complexity, the ambition, of this agreement, it’s not a very long period of time. It took five years for us to conclude our agreement with Canada.”