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8th round of TTIP negotiations concludes in Brussels

Xinhua, February 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

The eighth round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the United States concluded here on Friday, with progress made in regulatory issues.

"The regulatory cluster is the most innovative cluster of TTIP as it goes beyond what either the EU or the US have done in their trade agreements," said chief EU negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at the closing press conference.

Chief U.S. negotiator Dan Mullaney echoed his view, saying that the teams "discussed potential agreement language in all of the cross-cutting regulatory areas including regulatory coherence, technical barriers to trade, and sanitarian measures."

The fundamental principle in the regulatory issues "is to ensure that nothing that we do will undermine the ability of our governments to regulate in ways that we consider necessary to protect consumers, workers, and the environment," stressed Mullaney.

He praised the progress that the teams had made in joint negotiating texts in seven different areas, saying that "they started removing brackets in several cases moving towards convergence in the texts."

The interests of SMEs were attached great importance by the two parties in the negotiations.

"Many presentations highlighted the SMEs' access to information, reducing the costs associated to certification or duplication of inspections," said Bercero.

Mullaney, described the SMEs as "an important engine of growth and jobs," said "if we can put together provisions that reduce or eliminate red tape at the border for goods, eliminate charges, delays, that make it easier for exporters and importers to provide data to exports, then we can really turbo-charge the trade between us and in particular with SMEs."

Two more rounds of TTIP talks were planned in the first half of 2015, and the next round would take place in April in Washington, according to the officials.

"We expect to discuss joint negotiations texts in all of these areas in the coming rounds," said Mullaney, adding that "if we're going to get this negotiation done in a reasonable period of time, we're going to need to see faster movement soon." Endit