France’s junior minister for trade, Matthias Fekl, said it will be “impossible” for the EU and the United States to complete a free-trade agreement this year, reports the EurActiv news site. Fekl threw cold water on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on the same day the EU announced a slow-down in the approval process for a sweeping EU-Canada trade pact.
In a statement, Fekl said, “I think a [TTIP] deal in 2016 is impossible and everyone knows it, including those who say otherwise.” France already has said U.S. intransigence slowed negotiations, said EurActiv, “But the real reason seems to be that France will hold presidential elections in April-May 2017 and the incumbent president François Hollande doesn’t want this issue to be part of the campaign … Critics in Europe are particularly fearful of the impact on agriculture and the environment.”
The decision by EU executives that the parliaments in each of the 28 EU nations should vote on the Canadian pact puts it on the slow track, “increasing the risk of a veto amid an anti-globalization backlash across Europe,” said Bloomberg. Initially, the European Commission said the Canadian agreement could be affirmed by the European Parliament and the economic bloc, without needing review at the parliamentary level.
“I think [the TTIP deal] will fall through, and the agreement with Canada is at risk of doing the same. We have been negotiating it for too long,” said Italy’s minister of industry, Carlo Calenda, according to Reuters.