WASHINGTON — American and European Union trade officials sought on Friday to put the best face on their just-opened negotiations over a potentially sweeping transAtlantic trade agreement. But there were signals that an accord might not be reached as quickly as politicians had hoped, and that some of the trickier issues will remain problematic.
“We are very interested in moving expeditiously in this negotiation, so we’re going to move quickly, but we’re also going to move carefully,” Dan Mullaney, the chief U.S. negotiator, said at a joint U.S.-European Union news conference. “It’s important to us that we arrive at a deal quickly, but it’s even more important that we get the agreement right.”
Significantly, neither he nor his European counterpart, Ignacio Garcia-Bercero, specifically confirmed the deadline of year-end 2014 for the negotiations that politicians on both sides had previously described.
While more than a dozen working groups on each side will continue to communicate by e-mail, video conference and other means as they lay out the complex framework of the proposed pact — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — the next big round of meetings will not be held until sometime in October, and will take place in Brussels.
Furthermore, Mr. Garcia-Bercero said there would be no “harmonizing downwards” of European standards, which suggested that some of the thorniest issues — like Europeans’ aversion to American genetically modified food or hormone-fed beef — might resist early solution.
Mr. Mullaney, asked about discussions of “cultural” topics, said the talks had been inclusive and “covered the waterfront.”
It was unclear whether he meant to suggest that no subject had been ruled off-limits — including exports of films and other audiovisual products — which the French trade minister, Nicole Bricq, has insisted cannot be part of the talks.
Still, both sides attempted to give a positive cast to the negotiations. A deal would potentially bring huge benefits to economies that already account for about half of global economic output and one-third of world trade. Both sides have predicted a significant stimulus to their job markets and economies — by up to 1 point of gross domestic product — and a regularization of standards that may force competitors like China to follow their lead.
“The first round has confirmed that both sides are committed to a high level of ambition,” Mr. Garcia-Bercero said, adding that “both of us see this agreement as having potential to deliver something that will be transformative.”
The fact that this first round took place on schedule suggests the importance that American and European political leaders place on it. Many in Europe, and notably many Germans, favored a postponement after recent revelations of secret American surveillance programs aimed at Europeans. But Germany, with its huge export industry, is expected to be a prime beneficiary of any trade deal.
The surveillance question arose repeatedly at the news conference. Asked whether the two sides had exchanged assurances that they would not spy on each other, drawing a laugh but no explicit denial, Mr. Mullaney noted that the two sides were in separate talks on surveillance and data security, adding, “It really hasn’t come up in these discussions.”
Both of the chief negotiators said they were working to keep the talks transparent, as many nongovernmental groups have insisted.
Ira S. Shapiro, a lawyer who was a trade negotiator in the Clinton administration, said it would be difficult to judge the talks’ prospects until late in the process, noting that “the toughest issues tend to be resolved only at the very end.”
And each of those issues has its own committed advocates and stakeholders.
“Every trade barrier that countries maintain has behind it some very significant political, economic or cultural reasons,” Mr. Shapiro said, “so dismantling them doesn’t come easily.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/business/global/eu-and-us-open-first-round-of-trade-talks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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