“Just nobody says that”, Gabriel said Sunday during an appearance at a summer open-house event organized by the German government.
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But the deal has faced an unprecedented backlash in Germany, where hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across the country to protest.
Gabriel accused Washington of being angry about the deal that the European Union struck with Canada, known as CETA, because it contains elements the USA doesnt want to see in the TTIP.
“Talks over the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – or TTIP – between Europe and the U.S. have essentially failed, but ‘nobody is really admitting it”, Germany’s economy minister has said.
France’s President Francois Hollande has objected to plans to open up Europe’s farming and film markets to more United States competition, while protesters in Germany have claimed the deal would undermine labour and environmental standards.
His words clash with those of Chancellor Angela Merkel who has described the deal as “absolutely in the EU’s interests”.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was aimed at removing or reducing various barriers to EU-US trade.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said TTIP would be “a breeding ground for populism”. Among the stumbling blocks is a United States objection to opening public tenders to European companies.
The European Union’s lead negotiator in trade talks with the United States is downplaying an assertion from the German economy minister that negotiations on the proposed pact have failed. That deal would make trade easier without reducing standards for labor and the environment, Mr. Gabriel said. In the big picture, the tide supporting free trade deals has turned. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have criticized the recently agreed-upon Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact between the U.S., Japan, Canada, Australia and eight other countries around the Pacific.
The European public has also been unhappy with TTIP as the contents of the deal are secret.
TTIP was envisaged as a wide-ranging free-trade deal between the two enormous economic blocs, which European officials estimated would boost the EU’s GDP by euros 120bn, or 0.5pc.
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Viktoria Dendrinou contributed to this article.
