French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appeared to endorse Fekl’s position, telling ambassadors that he could not back a deal by that deadline.
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“We Europeans can not subject ourselves to American demands, there’s no movement there”, Gabriel said.
Since July 2013, when the European Union and the United States started negotiations on the free trade deal, 14 rounds of talks have been held.
Trade analysts say that Washington may be preparing for the end of trade talks, which typically conclude with each side holding the other responsible for failure.
However, while criticizing TTIP, Sigmar Gabriel stressed on his support to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) proposed between the European Union and Canada.
But Schinas repeated a statement made by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker two years ago that officials would not “sacrifice Europe’s safety, health, social and data protection standards or our cultural diversity on the altar of free trade”.
“They have been hard, of course, we knew from the beginning, but they have not failed”, she said.
But the prospect of a Brexit has triggered fresh doubt that TTIP could be completed in the final months of President Barack Obama’s term, as well as over Britain’s exact status in any deal as London ponders its future ties with the EU. 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. His spokeswoman, Tanja Alemany, said her boss’s comments were based on the lack of movement on the part of the US and that “he came to the realistic assessment” that there won’t be a deal this year.
On the record, USA and European officials say they are continuing to move forward with talks and stress the importance of the TTIP to their economies.
He says these treaties are mainly geared to benefit major corporations, adding that United States corporations which are much bigger and already in many more countries, will definitely profit more.
But French junior trade minister Matthias Fekl said there was “no more political support in France” for the talks because U.S. negotiators were offering “nothing or just crumbs”. One of the main concerns is that the deal would give companies legal rights that are more powerful than those of individual states due to TTIP’s investor-state dispute settlement’ (IDIS) mechanism.
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The European Commission, which is conducting the TTIP negotiations on EU members’ behalf, on Monday responded to Gabriel’s comments by saying the talks are making progress and are entering a crucial stage.
