I propose to take Questions Nos. 477 and 491 together.
The first round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks took place in Washington, D.C. between 8 and 12 July 2013 and the second round is scheduled to take place in Brussels from 7 to 11 October 2013.
The EU Commission has set up a specific webpage in order to provide as much information to stakeholders as is possible concerning the negotiations. The webpage can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/. The EU's initial position papers which were published on that webpage subsequent to the first round are the technical documents that were presented to the US side during the first round. These documents cover the following areas:-
- Cross-cutting & institutional provisions on regulatory issues
- Technical barriers to trade
- Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (i.e. barriers to trade in food and agricultural products)
- Public Procurement
- Raw materials and energy
- Trade and sustainable development
These papers were prepared ahead of the first round with the involvement of the EU Trade Policy Committee. The normal interdepartmental co-ordination process informed the position taken by Ireland.
The negotiations will be an iterative and on-going process and my Department, as lead Department for co-ordinating Ireland’s interests in EU trade policy, will bring together the inputs from all Departments and relevant stakeholders in order to evaluate Ireland’s interests in these negotiations. In this context, my Department recently launched a Request for Tenders for a “Study to Examine the Economic and other impacts on Ireland of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and related potential opportunities”. The focus of this study will be to identify opportunities and key areas and sectors of the Irish Economy that will be impacted by the TTIP and to quantify this impact. The study should also identify the appropriate strategy that should be deployed to maximise the potential arising from the TTIP and provide an assessment of the longer term implications for enterprise policy.
