BRUSSELS: US and EU trade negotiators rejected accusations on Friday that they are pandering to multinational companies in their push to agree the world’s largest free-trade deal, saying food safety and the environment will not be put at risk.
Consumer and green groups say a deal encompassing half the world’s economic output threatens the standards governing products from medical devices to toys, because companies are pressing for lower costs and fewer barriers to trade.
“We are not in the business of lowering standards,” the European Union’s chief trade negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero said after the second round of negotiations in Brussels on an EU-US free trade pact.
His US counterpart Dan Mullaney insisted: “We have received a clear message that whatever we do in regulation, we should not be undercutting the levels of protection that we have for the environment and for human health and safety.”
Bloc-to-bloc deals
The world’s largest economies are trying to agree a series of all-encompassing bilateral or bloc-to-bloc trade deals that go far beyond just lowering tariffs and seek to make life easier for businesses by harmonising rules.
Brussels and Washington both see free trade as a way to create jobs and generate investment after years of low growth following the global financial crisis.
Their proposed deal, which negotiators began discussing in July and hope to agree by the end of next year, could boost the EU and US economies by more than $100bn a year each.
EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has said that the EU’s tight regulation of genetically modified food will not change, even if Brussels and Washington sign an accord. Many Europeans consider GM crops as “Frankenstein Food”. But US lawmakers have said they will not support a deal unless the EU tears down barriers that have blocked US farm exports. Reuters
