Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Commission Daily News, 7 January 2015
The European Commission published today a raft of texts setting out EU proposals for legal text in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) it is negotiating with the US. This is the first time the Commission has made public such proposals in bilateral trade talks and reflects its commitment to greater transparency in the negotiations. 'I'm delighted that we can start the new year by clearly demonstrating through our actions the commitment we made to greater transparency just over a month ago,' said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström.
The so-called 'textual proposals' published today set out the actual language and binding commitments which the EU would like to see in the parts of the agreement covering regulatory and rules issues. The eight EU textual proposals cover competition, food safety and animal and plant health, customs issues, technical barriers to trade, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and government-to-government dispute settlement (GGDS, not to be confused with ISDS). Besides these, the Commission has also published TTIP position papers explaining the EU's approach on engineering, vehicles, and sustainable development, bringing the total number of position papers it has made public up to 15. To make the online documents more accessible to the non-expert, the Commission is also publishing a 'Reader's Guide', a glossary of terms and acronyms, and a series of factsheets setting out in plain language what is at stake in each chapter of TTIP and what the EU's aims are in each area.
For access to the 'Food Safety and Animal and Plant Health (SPS)' documents, see:
For access to all the documents, go to: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230
