Friday, November 13, 2015

Contribution to Flemish Parliament hearing on TTIP

Here I provide evidence on negotiations for the EU-US trade deal TTIP at a hearing of the Flemish Parliament, noting how reducing already low barriers may still make a big difference, amongst others for European car producers and chemicals. I dismissed claims that “regulatory cooperation” would constrain national regulators, explaining that it would be very hard to agree to make EU and US regulations more coherent. I also pointed out that TTIP is really about anti-discrimination, as it still allows countries to choose to regulate a lot or not, but only bans them from being protectionist, saying: “It will still be possible for France to ban cigarettes, if it likes to. It will only not be allowed to ban American cigarettes”

My contribution at the hearing can be watched from 1:09:40 in:



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