Three years of talks have failed to resolve multiple differences, including over food and environmental safety, but the USTR’s spokesman told German magazine Der Spiegel the negotiations “are in fact making steady progress”.
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He said that even if European Union foreign ministers decide at their meeting on September 22 and 23 to continue the negotiations, chances of a deal are now slim.
Sylvie Matelly, deputy director at the French Institute for worldwide and Strategic Affairs (IRIS), said it will be hard to successfully conclude what she sees as a flawed negotiating process. “We are continuing to work toward a goal of completing those negotiations before the end of the year”.
Meanwhile, Italian Trade and Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said it was essential for Italian exporters that the negotiations bore fruit.
According to a recording broadcast by ORF radio on Thursday, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker told Austria in June to stop its “clownery” around CETA, calling it the best trade agreement reached by the EU.
“We need a clear and definitive halt to these negotiations in order to restart on a good foundation”.
“In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it”, he said in a public Q&A session in Berlin on August 28.
The European Commission, which is handling the talks, has repeatedly insisted the “ball is still rolling” on the talks and that it would be prepared to ink the deal by the end of the year.
France’s trade minister said on Tuesday that Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations should not continue. France minister for foreign trade Matthias Fekl has also called this week for the negotiations to cease.
The EU’s executive Commission and U.S. negotiators began work on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2013, aiming to create the world’s biggest free trade market of 850 million consumers stretching from Hawaii to Lithuania. But the public mood is turning increasingly negative, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump making attacks on global trade deals a cornerstone of his campaign, saying they have cost U.S.jobs.
So far, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has remained firm in her public support of the proposed deal, describing its implementation last month as “absolutely in Europe’s interest”.
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Austria is ready to confront other European Union members states over its opposition to a free trade deal with Canada, Chancellor Christian Kern said, because it sees it containing numerous same problems as one being negotiated with the United States. “It is inevitable”, the minister, Carlo Calenda, said in an interview with Corriere della Sera newspaper published on Tuesday. However, recent developments along with the uncertainty of the November elections in the USA and the Brexit may have changed the plans.
