The latest negative noises emanating from France come just days after Germany economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said talks for TTIP had “de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it”.
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“These negotiations are dead and France wants an end to them”, Minister of Foreign Trade Matthias Fekl said Tuesday on RMC Radio. He said Europeans don’t want to “subject ourselves to American demands” and highlighted that out of the 27 chapters of the deal that have been discussed, worldwide negotiators have yet to fully agree on any of them.
Gabriel noted Sunday that in 14 rounds of talks on the massive trans-Atlantic pact the two sides haven’t agreed on a single common item out of 27 chapters being discussed.
But Mr Gabriel, who is the head of Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party which is in coalition with Ms Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union, said: “We mustn’t submit to the American proposals”.
The French government is to call for an end to negotiations of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade agreement.
But she added: “We have the aim and we still have. that we should aim to conclude under the Obama presidency”.
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.
However, the European Commission said Monday the ongoing TTIP negotiations are making “steady progress” and the “the ball is rolling” right now.
“I anticipate that when he travels to Europe in mid-September that they’ll be engaged in substantive discussions and hopefully will be able to make some additional progress”, Earnest said.
All EU member states and the European parliament must ratify any TTIP deal before it can take effect.
The European Commission and the Office of the US Trade Representative have been approached for comment.
While backers of the corporate-friendly deal, including U.S. President Barack Obama, have vowed to push ahead, its critics see the wave of public declarations by top ministers as proof their campaigning against the deal is paying off.
“We did not feel that there was a lack of support. we received the mandate to conclude these negotiations”. “It is inevitable”, the minister said.
United States president Barrack Obama previously stated that if TTIP is not completed now it will be years before a trade deal can be negotiated, given a schedule of elections in the U.S. and across Europe. John Hilary, executive director of campaign group War on Want, has described the pact as “an assault on European and USA societies by trans-national corporations”.
“We’re still not out of the woods in terms of dealing the EU’s legacy of toxic trade deals”.
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said TTIP would be “a breeding ground for populism”.
