What would Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) bring to Croatia?
The study “Impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the United States (TTIP) on the Republic of Croatia” is available on the website of the Croatia’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, reports liderpress.hr on May 11, 2016.
The study on the agreement, which is causing controversy in both the European Union and the United States, contains chapters on the history of TTIP, the negotiations and positions, analyzes the trade between Croatia and the United States, gives a macroeconomic analysis of the effects of TTIP, and presents conclusions about the impact of TTIP on Croatia.
According to media reports, the agreement includes three key components which are being negotiated in parallel and are part of a single package. These are: market access, regulatory cooperation and technical barriers, and rules. The goal of the EU is to conclude a balanced, ambitious and comprehensive trade agreement with the United States, says the Croatian Foreign Ministry.
The agreement has provoked controversies in the EU member states, including Croatia. In early May, Greenpeace published a large part of documents from confidential negotiations on TTIP, but both the European Commission and the United States rejected the claims of the environmental organization that the deal would lower European standards of consumer protection and regulations on sanitary and environmental protection.
Foreign Ministry adds in a statement that, in addition to the United States, the EU is currently also negotiating with Japan, Malaysia, India, Thailand, the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela), the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) and several African countries. It notes that the EU currently has several free trade agreements covering 46 countries and 36 percent of total EU trade. With the entry into force of agreements currently being negotiated, it is expected that over 66 percent of total EU trade with third countries would be covered by free trade agreements.
The study was prepared by a consortium consisting of PricewaterhouseCoopers Zagreb and the Center for International Development Zagreb.
More on TTIP in English can be found here, while the report in Croatian can be read here.
