The United
States “understands” why the European Union wants to include an investor court
system in the proposed EU-US free trade agreement, discussed in Brussels this
week, but the US' chief negotiator refrained from giving a substantive analysis
of the EU plan.
“We’ve
received the proposal fairly recently,” said Dan Mullaney at a press conference
on Friday (26 February), wrapping up the twelfth round of negotiations on the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
“We do
understand the concerns that are behind the proposal,” he noted, but did not
say whether he liked the idea or not, only that the two sides would discuss it
further.
“I can’t say
at this point what the outcome of those discussions are going to be, but we are
pursuing those discussions with full understanding of what the objectives are
behind these provisions and with a focus on how best we can achieve what are
essentially commonly shared goals and outcomes in this area.”
This week was
the first time that the two sides discussed the European proposal for an
investor court system (ICS), which was announced last year as a substitute for
the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system.
“Investment
protection is a highly complex subject,” said Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the EU’s
chief negotiator.
“This round
marks the beginning of the process of discussions in this area, and we have
spent significant time understanding each others’ proposals better and [are]
also starting to identify areas of convergence."
However, no
decisions were made.
“We haven’t
yet reached the point where we are already beginning drafting common language,”
Garcia Bercero noted.
EU trade
commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem proposed the court last September as an
alternative to ISDS. Critics feared an ISDS deal under TTIP would empower US
firms to sue EU governments should laws or policies run against their
interests.
But despite
the alternative, protests remain.
On Monday,
Greenpeace activists protested outside the negotiating venue in Brussels. They
believe that the ICS court is just as dangerous.
“[Negotiators]
say they want to protect environmental, health and labour standards, but
instead they are giving foreign corporations exclusive rights to challenge
these same standards in a special court,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
Garcia Bercero
and Mullaney are
“not at all frustrated” by the level of opposition to TTIP, they both said.
“We are
continuously ready to engage with everyone in Europe who has a view on TTIP. We
are ready to meet, we are ready to discuss,” said the European negotiator.
“We believe
this continued policy of engagement, of transparency, is the best way to
convince European citizens that there are no risks and a lot of benefits in the
TTIP negotiations,” he added.
And not
everyone is against TTIP.
Lobby group
Copa-Cogeca said Thursday on behalf of European farmers that they “strongly
support the TTIP negotiations for a comprehensive and balanced outcome”.
The group’s
secretary-general, Pekka Pesonen, said instead that a rival agreement between
the United States and eleven countries around the Pacific Ocean could pose a
threat to the European agricultural sector.
The US
recently signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, with countries like
Japan and Australia.
“If the TPP
agreement from the Pacific region is ratified and implemented before we can
conclude anything, that would give a comparative advantage to our competitors,
especially in these two countries, Japan and US,” said Pesonen at a press
conference Thursday.
The EU and US
meanwhile said they still hoped to conclude TTIP talks in 2016.
“Let me be
clear. We want to finish this year, but we do not favour an early harvest, or a
TTIP light. We want an ambitious, comprehensive and high-standard agreement,”
said Dan Mullaney, echoing similar words by his European counterpart.
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