INTA Committee Chief sets ‘red lines’ for TTIP – ahead of EP rentrée
Bordelex | 3 Sep 2014
INTA Committee Chief sets ‘red lines’ for TTIP – ahead of EP rentrée
As the European parliament (EP) goes back to work after its summer recess, Bernd Lange, the head of the EP’s international trade committee, made explicit his ’red lines’ for the ongoing transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) negotiations. He added that he would settle for a much less ambitious trade deal than the one currently planned.
In an article published in the German Internationale Gesellschaft und Politik magazine, that addresses his social-democrat party audience, he said that current EU laws should not be changed to the detriment of consumer and worker rights. Three further issues are ‘non-negotiatiable’ to him: data privacy, the ‘transfer of decisions on regulations to expert groups’, and the introduction of investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
Lange added that if a comprehensive approach to TTIP became impossible because it did not meet with these conditions, a pragmatic course of action should be adopted. TTIP should then become a limited agreement focused on a limited set of sectors involving reduction of tariffs, mutual recognition of certain technical standards, and liberalisation of public procurement markets.
TTIP talks were launched in 2013 with the aim of creating the biggest and most ambitious free trade deal in the world so far, that also makes domestic regulations and standards mutually compatible to reduce unnecessary barriers to trade. The deal has stirred considerable controversy amidst concerns that European food safety standards and data privacy might be sacrificed, and investor rights trump national laws. Further concerns aired in ongoing debates regard the possible governance of TTIP. Some fear decisions on standards and economic laws could escape democratic scrutiny.
