The event was organized on July 17th, 2013 by demosEUROPA-Centre for European Strategy together with the British Embassy in Warsaw.
Here are some not authorized fragments from the discussion on the prospects for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
“…According to Kenneth Clarke, Senior Cabinet Minister in the government of David Cameron, there is a real opportunity that the US and the EU might finally reach a long-awaited trade and investment agreement. However, their eventual success would demand a swift action on the part of political leaders in order not to lose the momentum of the process and to avoid being drawn into the backwater by narrow business lobbies. Concrete results should be achieved during the next two years, before the end of Barack Obama’s presidential term…”
Adam Jasser, Minister without the portfolio in the Premier Minister office.
From our point of view this is much more than trade. In Poland, because we are new to the EU, we are also new as a fully democratic country, the perspective on the whole issue on the transatlantic relations is slightly different. We are traditionally seeing NATO and the alliance with the USA as a some kind of fundamental pillar of security, prosperity, etc. This fits very nice with the trade agenda and is good to see both parts pushing in the same direction. I would like to stress that this is far more than trade and I see all those calculations showing the increase of trade by 0.6 present as very good sign, but this is much more fundamental. The changing the geopolitical environment, sticking together and having security component, NATO, and the trade component make perfect sense.
If you look at the strategic documents of the EU, of its predecessors, and NATO, they all refer to community of values, and they all talk about economics, political and security issues. All of it is in my view very consistent.
In Europe we are very proud of our regulatory framework, of human rights, and freedom. Our abilities to export these values in the crises are perhaps limited. Even inside Europe you can sometime hear people who preach the other values systems, which are in competitions – more autocratic, kind of enlightened government – as the best solutions, because of its higher growth rate. There is a competition, and this competition is going to be in my view bigger over the next few years.
Therefore if we are serious about protecting values we need to gain the critical mass and this is the only way is to end this division line between democracy based on certain values including free trade and opened economies. If we get this done it will be a crucial proof that decline of the West is not the case.
Henryka Bochniarz, President of the Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan
There is not doubt that business community, and I am not talking only about Polish business community, are definitely of favor of any action that will destroy the current system. I see the idea of accelerating the agreement between the EU and the USA is the way of escaping from the crises of the multilateral framework. There is no doubt that Doha Round, which was suppose to be the way of bringing multilateral trade to good level, in now in coma of even death. I have been in several meeting as the representative of the business Europe and it was to me a little of bit surprising that the negotiators were so enthusiastic. Taking into account the forthcoming European elections next fall in order to achieve anything we need some progress that would be serious enough not to be eventually cancel by the next administration of the EU. But the business community being very much supported is much more realistic here.
The question is to which extend this political support can produce some results. And to which extend the business community will be working together with administrations of both sides, and with the specific countries to make this successful. We had a meeting in Dublin and I had a feeling that much of interests was on the American side, American business was well represented, but the European business, which had a much shorted way to go to Dublin, was quite limited. Therefore I would like to here the clear message that that those negotiations will not end up like those in Doha. Otherwise people will become reluctant and I afraid that again we loose the momentum. We can talk about fundamentals and basis but being an optimist we will need really clear message from the European Commission, from the European Parliament, and from the US administration that this time we really want to achieve something.
And definitely we would come today to mention some sensitive issues – for example for Poland agricultural sector is extremely sensitive one, therefore we will have to find the room for a compromise and we need first put on the table something that make people really convinced that this is really a change. The change in the attitude. On the political side, and also on the business side.
“According to Mieczysław Nogaj, Director of Trade Policy Department in the Ministry of Economy, we may consider TTIP as a kind of an „economic NATO”. If the future agreement enables Europe to import cheap energy from America, than geopolitical position of Russia in Europe would automatically be hurt.”
John Paul Schutte, Political-Economic Counsellor in the US Embassy in Warsaw,
I have just returned from the trip to the US where I had the opportunity to speak with our top officials involved in the negotiations. The level of enthusiasm, the level of energy is tremendous, also the hopes and expectations are tremendous, and they are sincere. The only issue they seemed to be facing is our budget. As you may know the last week happened in Washington the first round of negotiations, the next would in October. And both – the UE and the American side – has expressed enormous satisfaction. This confirmed the community of our common values. This is an evolution of the post war trading system based on open space. What is the most exciting about it, and would be the American government most exiting about it, is haw we will tackle the hardest problems in our trading relationships. It is enormous trading relationship. The decline of the West is a myth. Even now, when Asia is growing stronger, US trade with the UE is tripled than with China. European trade with the US is double that with China. And we all are in the economic crises. So we are finding the way of achieving growth without creating big budget issues.
Poland is facing it, and the US is facing it. We are exiting about it not only because the economic consequences, but also due to symbolic and geostrategic importance of continuous vitality of transatlantic community. In short – changes to those will have implications on both sides. But since we agreed to harmonize our systems based on principles and to maintain the high standards and recognition of our regulatory systems in various sectors, that principles are already in the foundations – the is no reason to believe that is going to find itself on the rocks.
