DEA-EBL : Droit européen des affaires - European Business » Droit du commerce international / International Trade Law

EU-US trade agreements do not prevent protection of public services

DEA-EBL — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 19:22:25 +0000

The 20th March 2015, the US Ambassador Froman and the EU Trade Commissioner Malmström released a joint statement in which the important role public services play in the United States and the European Union.

« US and EU trade agreements do not prevent governments, at any level, from providing or supporting services in areas such as water, education, health, and social services.
Furthermore, no EU or US trade agreement requires governments to privatise any service, or prevents governments from expanding the range of services they supply to the public. Moreover, these agreements do not prevent governments from providing public services previously supplied by private service suppliers; contracting a public service to private providers does not mean that it becomes irreversibly part of the commercial sector. »

The protection of public services also remains a requirement in negotiations of TTIP and TiSA¹.

European Commission, 20 March 2015, « Joint Statement on Public Services » ↩

TTIP negotiations : a dedicated chapter to the SMEs

DEA-EBL — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 17:29:49 +0000

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is mainly aimed to remove the remaining trade barriers between the European Union and the United States of America. High tariffs are concentrated in sectors that are important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), like food, textiles and ceramics. Moreover, SMEs feel many trade barriers more than large companies because they have to spread fixed costs like product approvals over smaller sales.

The negotiators of the partnership were agreed to set up a dedicated chapter to the SMEs as announced by Cecilia Malmström, the EU Commissier for Trade the 12th March 2015.
The TTIP should mandate more EU-US joint government outreach for the SME community.
A SME Committee should be set up to make sure that governments do not stop to keep in mind SMEs after TTIP is in place.
Finally, governements should deliver clear information to SMEs about all the rules and regulations that apply to their product. The EU wants this to be done via a comprehensive website.

Cecilia Malmstrôm’s full speech on the European Commission website