Huffington Post — Reports coming out of Brussels and Washington suggest that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, otherwise known as TTIP, has been crippled, possibly killed, by Brexit. Informed sources suggest that TTIP will be parked until Britain’s Article 50 negotiations have been completed and that there is now a possibility that the deal will never be concluded.
Officially, Brussels is denying there is a problem, but a source close to the TTIP negotiations has said that the European Union won’t admit anything is wrong to avoid giving the impression that it is in disarray after the Brexit vote. Some members of the European Parliament are concerned that if the EU cannot fulfil its central purpose of concluding trade deals there may be contagion as more member states seek to follow Britain’s lead.
Influential Washington figures warn that Britain represents 16% of the EU market and that the deal must be put on hold. Until Britain’s relationship with the EU is finalised, there is no way to assess the nature and scale of the reduction in the EU’s market, making it impossible to value. Others in the US are worried about the loss of a liberal, free-market EU member, and wonder how difficult it will be to conclude a deal with some of the more protectionist states that remain.
Officially, the EU Ambassador to the US, David O’Sullivan, has reiterated the intention to complete TTIP by the end of 2016, “The most important thing now is to reach a conclusion between the negotiators this year, and that is how we will go forward, and then it will be for the UK to decide what kind of trade relationship it wants with the United States.”
With Article 50 unlikely to be invoked until David Cameron’s replacement is chosen, which will happen by September 2nd, there would seem to be insufficient time to conclude the negotiations before the end of the year, and many in Brussels now want to focus on obtaining the right Brexit terms, pushing TTIP down the list of priorities. With next year’s elections in France, Germany, and Holland, EU leaders may lack the political capital to ratify TTIP against the rising tide of popular opinion.
