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Roundup: EU-US free trade negotiations split German coalition as election approaches

Xinhua, August 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel reiterated his doubts about negotiations over a controversial free trade deal between the European Union and the United States on Tuesday, ignoring contradictory remarks from German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a day earlier.

Analysts said the conflicts within the German coalition showed competition between parties as Germany's parliamentary election approaches.

Gabriel, who is also chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), said here on Tuesday that no significant issue in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had been clarified after 14 rounds of talks since July 2013. It would be "pure fiction" that an agreement would be reached by the end of this year, before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office.

On Sunday, he claimed that the negotiations between the EU and the United States had "de facto failed," even though no one admitted it.

"We, as Europeans, should not subject ourselves to American demands," he said.

On Monday, however, Chancellor Merkel, who leads the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party of Germany, rejected Gabriel's declaration.

"The negotiations are still not over," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said, adding that although the EU and U.S. positions were partly different, decisive compromises were often only achieved in the last round of talks.

Negotiators on both sides of the Atlantic seek to reach an agreement by the end of this year, but the public is worried that jobs would be lost, and consumer protection and environmental standards would be weakened under the agreement.

An earlier survey found that public support for the agreement has dropped sharply in both Germany and the United States in recent years. Campaigners have called for protests against TTIP across Germany on Sept. 17.

"There is a competition between the party leader and the economy minister," said Martin Wansleben, chief executive of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), referring to Gabriel's dual role.

"At the moment, the economy minister has lost," he told Deutschlandfunk radio, "The reality is the reality. The election campaign is in sight."

Germany is set to hold a parliamentary election in autumn 2017. In 2013, Merkel's Union party, a bloc of CDU and its Bavarian sister Christian Social Union (CSU), formed a grand coalition with Gabriel's SPD, as neither party was able to hold a majority in the lower house of German parliament.

According to the latest poll, 30.5 percent of Germans supported the CDU/CSU union, while SPD gained 21 percent.

"TTIP must not fall victim to the incipient election campaign," warned Matthias Wissmann, head of the German automakers' association, VDA, arguing that a cross-Atlantic free trade zone would create opportunities for growth and jobs. Endit