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“It’s been a very productive week”, said EU Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia-Bercero coming out of the talks. “We have been striving already for many months to prepare the ground for an ambitious trade and investment deal that will boost the transatlantic economy, delivering jobs and growth for both European and Americans. This week we have been able to take this negotiation to the next step. The main objective has been met: we had a substantive round of talks on the full range of topics that we intend to cover in this agreement. This paves the way to for a good second round of negotiations in Brussels in October.”
Working throughout the week, the negotiating groups have set out respective approaches and ambitions in as much as 20 various areas that the TTIP - the biggest bilateral trade and investment negotiation ever undertaken - is set to cover. They included:
Negotiators identified certain areas of convergence across various components of the negotiation and - in areas of divergence – begun to explore possibilities to bridge the gaps.
The talks have been based on a thorough review of the stakeholders views expressed to date. The negotiators met also in the middle of the week with approximately 350 stakeholders from academia, trade unions, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations to listen to formal presentations and answer questions related to the proposed agreement.
Initial EU position paper on Trade and sustainable development