Latest from Brussels

Huge TTIP Leak – How Does Agriculture Fare?

Another leak has rocked the TTIP negotiations. The full extent of the demands from the US side for sacrifices to EU standards – especially in agriculture – are revealed. However – and despite the spin – major differences between the two sides are also exposed. Peter Crosskey has the details, with special reference to agriculture. […]

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Informing the Brexit food debate

n a bid to bring some facts to a heated discussion that has yet to cover food production, Food Research Collaboration academics Dr Victoria Schoen and Professor Tim Lang have released a briefing paper to inform discussions of the food issues that membership of the EU raises for UK citizens. […]

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TTIP to follow CETA’s geographical carve up?

European negotiators have struck a clumsy compromise to protect about one in 10 of the EU’s Geographical Indicators (GIs) during transatlantic trade talks with the Canadians. Protected geographical terms have long been a bone of contention on the other side of the Atlantic, as ARC2020 reported earlier in its TTIP coverage. Classified by some as a technical barrier to trade, the EU’s extensive register of geographical indications (GIs) has often been held up as an example of unfair practice by traders up and down north America. On February 29, the European Commission released a summary of the final text of the Comprehensive European Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), which is widely regarded as a TTIP testbed. Had the details been in the public domain earlier in the negotiating process they would have sparked howls of protest: the current document, however, represents a fait accompli with a sting in the tail. There are over 1,400 EU geographical indications, many of them wines and spirits that were bundled into the existing EU-Canada Wines and Spirits Agreement, which […]