PARIS: French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday a long-awaited EU-US trade deal would not be agreed before US President Barack Obama leaves office in January.
“The current discussions on the treaty between Europe and the United States will not lead to an agreement by the end of the year,” Hollande said.
Earlier Tuesday, France’s pointsman on the talks, junior trade minister trade Matthias Fekl, said Paris was going to call for the negotiations to be suspended.
Hollande said in a speech to France’s diplomatic corps: “France would rather see things as they are and not harbour the illusion that an agreement will be struck before the end of the US president’s term in office.” Choosing his words more carefully, he said it would be an “illusion” to say a deal was close.
Fekl said the negotiations no longer had “political support” in France because the US negotiators “give nothing or just crumbs”.
He told RMC radio that the best approach would be to halt the talks “in order to restart on a good foundation”.
But EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said that she did not agree that the negotiations had failed.
“They have been difficult, of course, we knew from the beginning, but they have not failed,” she said.
Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister Sigmar Gabriel had said Sunday the negotiations were effectively dead in the water.
“The talks with the US have de facto failed because we Europeans of course must not succumb to American demands ... nothing is moving forward”, Gabriel said.
The EU Commission and US negotiators began work on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2013, aiming to create the world’s largest free-trade area before Obama ends his term.
But the talks have become bogged down amid widespread suspicion in the 28-nation EU that a deal would undercut the bloc’s standards in key areas such as health and welfare.
Malmstroem admitted there would be no deal by the end of this year as originally envisaged when the talks started.
“I don’t want to analyse the mind and the intentions of President Hollande. And it is clear that for the moment we do not have enough — we can’t conclude before the end of the year,” the Swede said.
But she added: “We have the aim and we still have ... that we should aim to conclude under the Obama presidency. That is still our aim.
“And if that is not possible it makes sense to make as much progress as possible.”
However Fekl said Paris sees an imbalance in the negotiations in favour of the US side.
“The Americans give nothing or just crumbs ... that is not how negotiations are done between allies,” he said.
