France demands end to TTIP negotiations

France has increased the pressure on the proposed EU-US free trade deal, calling for negotiations to be called off.

French foreign trade minister Matthias Fekl said that there is “no longer any political support” in Paris for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations that kicked off between the EU and the USA in July 2013.

“At the end of September, at the meeting of foreign trade ministers in Bratislava, I will ask, in the name of France, for the TTIP negotiations to be stopped,” Fekl said. “France wants the negotiations to be stopped, purely, simply and definitively. Why? Because they were started in a spirit of opacity. We need to put a clean, clear and definitive stop to the process so we can restart the discussions on a good basis.”

He said that the negotiations were loaded in favour of the US, with the Americans giving Europe “nothing or mere crumbs”.

“This is not how we should negotiate between allies,” he said.

German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that TTIP was “finished”, as the two parties had failed to agree on a single point in the 27 negotiation chapters. The European Commission - which is carrying out negotiations on behalf of EU member states – immediately denounced this declaration.

However, the US’ lead negotiator Michael Froman insisted that the TTIP negotiations were “moving forward”, and the EC said that TTIP was still very much on its agenda.

EC spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said on Monday that the European executive hopes to conclude the negotiations by the end of the year, but not if it means sacrificing European standards on security, health, social security, data protection or cultural diversity.