France joins dissenters over US-EU trade deal

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France joins dissenters over US-EU trade deal

6:21 CAT | 31 Aug 2016

Trade talks between the EU and the US should be halted and a new set started, France’s trade minister said on Tuesday, adding his voice to calls from Germany for an end to the negotiations.

Three years of talks on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership have failed to resolve multiple differences, including over food and environmental safety.

Despite a weekend comment by German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel that the talks had “de facto failed”, the European Commission says negotiations are making steady progress and there is an outline of a future an agreement.

Gabriel’s comments found an echo on Tuesday in French Trade Minister Matthias Fekl, who said he would request a halt to the trade talks at September’s meeting of EU trade ministers in Bratislava. “There should be an absolute clear end so that we can restart them on a good basis,” Fekl said, calling the process “opaque” and unbalanced.

With national elections due in France and Germany in 2017, experts have been saying that 2016 — before the end of US President Barack Obama’s mandate in January — may be the best opportunity to strike a deal.

President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appeared to endorse Fekl’s position, telling ambassadors that he could not back a deal by that deadline.

Meanwhile, Italian Trade and Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said it was essential for Italian exporters that the negotiations bore fruit. The partnership “will be sealed. It is inevitable,” the minister said.

Gabriel is the chairman of the Social Democrats, who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives. But Merkel backs the talks and her spokesman insisted on Monday that they should continue. The official line from both the European Commission and the US is also that the talks are progressing.

Source: Reuters