A week of trade talks in Brussels have taken the European Union and the United States a little closer to a deal to liberalise bilateral trade. EU officials say the trade relationship with the US is already the biggest in the world, worth more than 2bn euros (£1.7bn) a day. If it happens, the agreement would be huge, capable of changing the shape of global trade. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24965053
There are concerns that regulatory reform might lead to the lowest level protection becoming the standard – “harmonising down” as it has been called.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth has said the result of the negotiations could be “a dangerous deregulation of environmental and public health safeguards”.
Genetically modified (GM) food is the obvious case, where Europe takes a very sceptical approach to allowing new examples to be sold.
It is a very unwelcome barrier to exports as far as American Agrabiz is concerned.
Apparently, GM wasn’t even discussed this last week according to the negotiators. It certainly will be interesting when they do.