“We lack broad consultations on the TTIP Agreement with business environments” – said Roman Rewald, AmCham Board Member during the European Economic Congress‘ (EEC) panel on Transatlantic Partnership – Economic Impact, which focused entirely on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a concept of a global economic agreement with an assumption to eliminate customs duties, administrative and regulatory barriers that hamper the trade and investments between the EU and the US. The details of TTIP were discussed by representatives of politics and business during the second day of the EEC debates.
The debate addressed the current progress of negotiations on the partnership and its macroeconomic perspectives. Participants of the debate defined beneficiaries and benefits connected with the planned agreement as well as potential “sensitive” areas that may appear in the financial, audiovisual and electronic services, intellectual property and agricultural sectors. Much attention was given to the impact of the trade agreement between the EU and the US on other global economy markets.
Roman Rewald, Board Member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland, Partner of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, underlined the significance of dissemination of knowledge about the partnership and added that the American Chamber together with the US Embassy, representatives of the government and business organizations, want to establish a forum to allow for consultation of the TTIP Agreement by the Polish business environments.
“The understanding of the significance of TTIP for the Poles is still limited, and if entrepreneurs are not aware of significance of that issue they are not able to express their concerns. We have to talk about TTIP. Now it is time to present our concerns and doubts, and not after the negotiations on the Agreement have been closed” – he underlined.
The next lecturers stressed that the reason for the lack of information on the part of business environments may also be defined otherwise: “European entrepreneurs do not have a common position on TTIP. As far as their common position is concerned – there is no such (…) Should the TTIP Agreement be submitted to the European Parliament today, honestly, I must say that am not able to predict the outcome of such debate” – said Jacek Krawczyk, Chairman of the European Economic and Social Committee’s Employers Group. He underlined the problem of active organizations and associations that are sceptical about the Transatlantic free trade agreement and whose impact on the European authorities and the EU decision-taking process is increasing.
Dan Mullaney, the US main negotiator ensured that all comments and concerns connected with the treaty may be submitted any time to both negotiating parties, while next rounds of negotiations would serve consultations with stakeholders involved. Therefore, the publicity of the knowledge about the partnership is so important, which was stressed by all participants of the debate.
text source: press office of EEC