UNLIKELY THAT AN AGREEMENT ON THE TTIP WILL BE REACHED IN 2016

Currently the negotiations are not balanced. It will only be possible to make progress if the American negotiators are amenable to greater reciprocity. Where the service industry is concerned, the EU has put forward ambitious goals in connection with an opening up of the markets, but its proposals have not been greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm in the United States. We are still a long way away from a balanced agreement on the opening up of public markets. If the current asymmetrical situation lasts, France will not rule out the option of calling for a stop to the negotiations.

The promotion of global standards justifies keeping the negotiations going. At the end of the day the Europeans will still have the opportunity, through the European Parliament, their national parliaments, and the European Council, to choose whether or not to ratify an agreement.

As things stand today, it is unlikely that an agreement will be reached between now and the end of 2016, thus during the final months of Barack Obama’s mandate, as the Americans would like. While the negotiators’ goal remains to achieve political agreements on a certain number of issues before the American election, the benefits of regulatory cooperation are in any event only going to materialise at a much later date. And the final agreement would probably be less detailed than people think today. As the negotiations move forward, they must be matched by a stronger will on the part of member states to agree amongst themselves on the issues that are relevant to European businesses’ competitiveness, such as the energy transition, for example. In that sense, TTIP demands a strengthening of the European internal market in goods and services.