Acceleration on TTIP during 12th negotiating round

"This year a political agreement should be reached on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that clearly identifies landing zones including for the most sensitive areas, but without lowering our expectations or the level of ambition", Director General Markus J. Beyrer told chief negotiators at a breakfast event BusinessEurope hosted on 23 February. Daniel Mullaney and Ignacio Garcia Bercero highlighted their strong commitment to an acceleration of the process to allow for conclusion of a political agreement by the end of the year. Pat Ivory, chairman of our US Network, represented BusinessEurope at the roundtable discussion to mark the launch of "Four Sectors, Many Stories, One Ambition – Leading UK industries make the case for TTIP", an event jointly organised by British American Business and the UK Representation to the EU which focused on the potential benefits for small and medium-sized enterprises. Finally, at the TTIP stakeholder event on 24 February, Eleonora Catella said that regulatory cooperation is above all a process: an obligation for regulators to cooperate must be provided for in the agreement by means of a detailed framework with clear deadlines.