EU Leaders Trying to Rush TTIP Deal

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>American and European Union (EU) negotiators are rushing to complete the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal before Barack Obama leaves office, as fears increase the deal will be delayed another two to three years, or even collapse completely, once a new U.S. President is sworn in.

Also taken into account are the 2017 French and German elections

>Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel, along with the heads of the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank issued a joint statement saying they “expect significant progress in the negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in 2016.”

>Luisa Santos, director for international relations at BusinessEurope, the EU’s main business lobby, said: “The Americans are using their presidential elections to not move on any topics that are sensitive for them, but we knew from the start this would come up. It’s not fair to hide behind an election now.”

>If trade talks are not concluded in the coming months, there may not realistically be a deal before 2018 or 2019, according to Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of European Centre for International Political Economy.

>“Whoever will be the next [U.S.] president, we’re looking deep into 2017 before they come to bother about trade,” he said. “It’s not difficult, it’s simply impossible.”

>Even if the next American President decides to push ahead with TTIP as soon as possible, France and Germany, the EU’s two biggest powers, will go to the polls next year in elections that could see a Eurosceptic backlash in both countries.