The high level team dealing with a potential US-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has cleared the way for formal negotiations to begin. Indeed the European Union’s incoming trade chief is vowing to pursue an ambitious free trade agreement with the United States.
The shared ambition would be to progressively move to a more integrated transatlantic marketplace. Both sides have set down a target of achieving an agreement by end of 2016.
The reason for these timelines is because the agreement has to overcome issues on regulatory differences including areas such as agriculture subsidy issues, government procurement issues and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) regulations.
According to the European Union Commission, the impact of an US-EU Free Trade Agreement is expected to increase trade between the US and EU by $150 billion in goods and services each year.
Once an agreement is achieved, it will be a game changer for the smallest to the biggest companies as their marketplace will have grown to over 700 million customers.
The US-EU FTA will be broad in scope covering trade in goods, services and investment. It will focus on the removal both of trade tariffs and of regulatory barriers on these areas.
Tariffs
All tariffs and duties on bilateral trade will be eliminated. The agreements objective will be to eliminate the majority of tariffs at the commencement of the agreement and over a short time frame phasing out of all but the most sensitive tariffs. Both parties will look at ways to treat products which are deemed sensitive.
Non-Tariff and Regulatory Issues
Whilst both parties seek an integrated marketplace, they will need to agree an approach to deal with each party’s different regulatory approach to areas such as the environment, health and safety.
Services
The aim of negotiations would be to overcome traditional barriers preventing cross trade of services in both markets. The US and the EU would be committed to enhance regulatory principles already covered in current deals but also provide transparency, impartiality and due process with regard to requirements on qualifications and licences.
Investment
The aim would be to negotiate investment liberalisation and protection provisions. Indeed the EU has said that it is willing to look at dropping the controversial investor-protection rules with the US
Goodada
Goodada’s International network provides the tools and services which will allow businesses maximise their trading opportunities that will result from this agreement.