France said Tuesday it will call on the European Commission to suspend negotiations on a massive trade deal between the European Union and the United States, which it complained are unfairly weighted in favour of the Americans.
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Talks on a free trade deal being negotiated by the United States and the European Union are making progress, a spokesman for the USA trade chief told Der Spiegel, contradicting the German economy minister, who said the discussions had failed. “Remember what Mark Twain said”.
Twain once quipped that reports of his death were an exaggeration.
Christian Wigand, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and which is leading the TTIP negotiations, said Sunday that the institution had no comment or reaction at this time.
While Merkel and President Barack Obama have pushed for a deal this year, Gabriel has previously suggested the talks would fail unless the USA makes concessions to European Union negotiators.
“The nature of trade negotiations is that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to, so it is not at all surprising that TTIP chapters have not been formally closed”, McAlvanah said. More from the story: He noted that in 14.
His spokeswoman, Tanja Alemany, said her boss’s comments were based on the lack of movement on the part of the USA and that “he came to the realistic assessment” that there won’t be a deal this year.
“Talks are now indeed entering crucial stage as we have proposals for nearly all chapters on the table and a good sense of the outline of the future agreement”.
The White House has said this week it aims to reach a deal by the end of the year.
Schinas said the Commission was still ready to finalise the deal by the end of the year but not at the expense of “Europe’s safety, health, social and data protection standards, or our cultural diversity”.
Free trade negotiations between the US and the European Union have “failed” because Americans are widely considered to be getting the better end of the deal, according to a German government official who blames the lack of progress regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – or TTIP – on unfair terms for Europeans.
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While increased trade and the removal of barriers to trade appear on one hand to benefit both sides of the agreement, negotiations have stalled over whether the benefits would be evenly distributed.
