EU Trade Ministers Pledge T-TIP Support

EU trade ministers meeting in Athens last week pledged their full support to the ongoing trade talks with the US, as part of a broader push on both sides to allay concerns from public interest groups over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). With the fourth round of negotiations set to begin in less than one week, the planned agreement has received amped-up attacks from a diverse collection of critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

With both the EU and US working their way out of a prolonged financial crisis, advocates for T-TIP have said that the deal could provide a much-needed boost to their economies. For instance, figures cited by the EU place the increase in the bloc’s GDP at an additional 0.5 percent each year, netting an additional €275 billion in total trade per annum.

Substantively, the US labour organisation is particularly opposed to investor-state dispute settlement systems, an issue that has also sparked concern in the EU. Brussels, for instance, has already pledged to publish its negotiating objectives for the investment part of the deal this month, which will be followed by a three-month public comment period.