The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has long been a source of contention in Europe and the United States, a fact that does not appear likely to change as the talks progress. French Foreign Trade Minister Matthias Fekl said during an interview Aug. 30 on RMC Radio that there is no political support in France for the proposed trade deal. Fekl plans to speak on France's behalf at a Sept. 22 meeting of EU trade ministers in Bratislava, where he will call on the European Commission to end the TTIP negotiations and restart them on better terms. His statement comes just two days after his German counterpart, Sigmar Gabriel, declared that the TTIP talks had failed after 14 rounds of negotiations produced no agreement on any of the deal's 27 chapters.
Officials who support the trade agreement, however, have offered a more optimistic outlook. A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed on Aug. 29 that the TTIP negotiations would continue. The same day, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the talks were moving forward and that the commission is prepared to finalize them by the end of year. He added that the deal would not compromise the European Union's standards on health, safety, data protection or cultural diversity.
Still, opposition to TTIP remains strong in France, where the talks are widely perceived to lack transparency. Many French citizens also believe the United States has shown itself unwilling to compromise on any substantive issues within the deal, such as deregulating the agricultural sector. TTIP has created controversy in Germany as well, inspiring several anti-TTIP demonstrations, including a protest in Berlin that drew more than a million people in October 2015. Several German organizations are arranging another mass demonstration in the capital on Sept. 17, and many believe Gabriel's statements against the deal reflect an effort to harness popular opinion in support of his Social Democratic Party. (Its larger coalition partner, the Christian Democratic Union, has backed the deal.)
Meanwhile, across the pond, the TTIP faces an uncertain future as U.S. President Barack Obama's last term winds down. Neither the Democratic nor the Republican candidate competing to replace him supports the deal, and other trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and NAFTA, have become central topics of debate in this year's presidential race. Obama has already been criticized for passing the TPP. Even if TTIP negotiations were to continue under his successor, elections in France and Germany slated for next year are likely to reignite the debate surrounding the agreement in 2017.
