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The current ACP-EU Partnership Agreement (the 'Cotonou Partnership Agreement') features a provision making it possible for the EU to negotiate different economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with regional ACP sub-groups. This provision was needed for the partnership to be brought into compliance with the World Trade Organization's rules. Negotiations for an EPA with the members of the East African Community (EAC) – at the time: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda – were finalised in October ...

In the early 20th century, rail was by far the most important mode for hauling goods across Europe. Since then, the freight market has undergone profound changes. In 2014, rail accounted for less than 12 % of all freight in the EU, while its main competitor, road haulage, achieved roughly a 50 % market share. This development entailed environmental concerns, road being considered more detrimental to the environment than rail. In the context of a predicted increase in freight transport, the EU has ...

TTIP - Challenges and Opportunities

At a Glance 29-06-2016

This leaflet provides short compilation of papers prepared by the European Parliament’s Policy Department A: Economic and Scientific Policy in relation to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The case is made paper maintains that the EU-Turkey CU of 1995 covering industrial goods should be modernised and modified to take into account the various and growing criticisms of the original CU. Furthermore, economic integration between the EU and Turkey should be strengthened by signing a complementary deep integration regional trade agreement (RTA) between the EU and Turkey, covering agriculture, SPS measures, services, government procurement, investment, and dispute settlement. For Turkey, ...

Food contact materials (FCMs) are widely used in everyday life in the form of food packaging, kitchen utensils, tableware, etc. When put in contact with food, the different materials may behave differently and transfer their constituents to the food. Thus, if ingested in large quantities, FCM chemicals might endanger human health, or change the food itself. Therefore, food contact materials are subject to legally binding rules at EU level, currently laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 which ...

The study TTIP: Engineering including Machinery explores how TTIP could effectively address the causes of costly market access to the US in the Engineering sector, such as stubborn TBTs. The case is made why TTIP offers the potential to lower the TBTs to the US engineering market significantly, via three complementary routes in TTIP. The study sets out the overall and specific EU offensive interests, one crucial defensive interest (the integrity of the single market) and some opportunities and challenges ...

The study TTIP: Opportunities and Challenges in the area of Technical Barriers to Trade, including Standards concentrates on the horizontal TBT chapter in TTIP, with links to the regulatory cooperation chapter and the nine sectorial chapters This is a short overview of this study. Link to the original document: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/542225/IPOL_STU(2015)542225_EN.pdf

The trade costs associated with customs and other border controls become more important as tariff barriers are reduced. The EU is in the process of further modernisation of is customs code. It also needs to work with the EU’s trading partners to facilitate trade while protecting consumer interests and the security of the international supply chain. The negotiations on TTIP offer a means of building on existing agreements to further this aim. This paper is about how to make customs more efficient. ...

The European Engineering industry, by far the biggest exporter of goods to the US, suffers from a range of TBTs (Technical Barriers to Trade) when exporting to the US. After two decades of trying – in vain - to reduce the costs of these TBTs, TTIP should address them, yielding significant economic gains. US standards, relevant for US safety regulation, are very rarely international standards from ISO and IEC, in sharp contrast with the EU. This is costly for EU exporters. Conformity assessment issues ...

The study explores the possibilities for reducing the costs of technical barriers to trade (TBTs) between the US and the EU, found in standardisation, technical regulations and/or conformity assessment procedures and acceptance of their results. This is important for many industrial sectors but also horizontally as TBTs generally. The EU proposal is ambitious, but without a US text, feasibility is hard to assess, given that the two systems differ considerably. A preliminary attempt to construct the ...