Competition & Regulation

Group Letter Questioning Plans for Regulatory Coherence Under the US/EU Trade Agreement

The undersigned organizations are writing to express our deep concerns about proposals for “regulatory cooperation” between the United States and European Union under the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, otherwise known as the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement or TAFTA). The vast majority of estimates for TTIP’s economic benefits are hypothesized to come from tackling “non-tariff” or “technical barriers” to trade. These perceived barriers are also the laws that protect people, the environment, and the integrity of our respective economies. The EU and the U.S. acknowledge that reducing these costs to industry is one of the most important and most challenging aspects of these trade negotiations. Thus, TTIP is more about how national or regional laws and policies are made, rather than international trade in its traditional sense.