Ceci est une version HTML d'une pièce jointe de la demande d'accès à l'information 'TTIP lobbying'.




 
Ref. Ares(2015)1684034 - 21/04/2015
Ref. Ares(2017)3665888 - 20/07/2017
EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Directorate-General for Trade 
 
Directorate G – Trade Strategy and Analysis, Market Access 
Chief economist and Trade Analysis 
 
Brussels, 17/04/2015 
DG TRADE/G2/NS/mc (Ares 2015) 1889273 
 
NOTE TO THE FILE 
 
 
Subject:  
Minutes of workshop “TTIP myths debunked - What’s really in it for 
consumers?” held in Brussels on 31 March 2015  
 
On 31 March I attended the workshop “TTIP myths debunked - What’s really in it for 
consumers?” on invitation by the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. The event took place at 
the premises of BEUC and gathered around 25 participants, including representatives from 
US and European consumers associations, staff from Member States permanent 
representations as well as from the US mission to the EU.  
The first part of the workshop was dedicated to discussing the economic gains from TTIP. 
The introductory remarks were delivered by Monique Goyens (director-general at BEUC) 
who set the scene by saying that many doubts persist on whether this agreement will bring 
any actual benefits to consumers while there are concerns about potential negative effects on 
employment. These were followed by two presentations. The first speaker was Rhoda 
Karpatkin (president Emeritus at Consumers Union) who voiced some frequent criticisms to 
TTIP (ISDS, threats to consumer protection, potential for reducing the civil society 
participation in rule making) and made the point that these concerns should weigh more than 
promises of more variety and lower prices. The second speaker was Professor  Art. 4.1 b  
from the University of Ghent who criticised TTIP and the CEPR (2013) analysis along three 
main ideas: i) the benefits of the agreement are small (and unevenly distributed), ii) their 
quantification is based on unrealistic assumptions (referring in particular to the fixed labour 
market closure used in the CGE simulations), iii) the TTIP simulations feature unrealistic 
scenarios for NTB cuts.  I was given the opportunity to react and insisted on the importance 
of the gains coming out from the CEPR (2013) analysis especially considering that they are 
delivered by a single policy initiative. I also pointed out that the CEPR (2013) analysis is 
based on well-tested methodologies and that its results are in line with others (while the 
studies that adopted less conventional techniques have actually put forward considerably 
higher gains). I also called the attention to the transparency of the analysis as it offers an 
insight of the impact of TTIP under several possible scenarios.  
The second part of the workshop was dedicated to discussing whether there is scope for 
mutual recognition of technical product standards in TTIP. The session was structured along 
three presentations: one by 
Art. 4.1 b
 (CEN/CENELEC), another by Dr.  Art. 4.1 b  
(former CPSC commissioner, Consumer Reports technical director and ANSI Board) and a 
third one by 
Art. 4.1 b
 (ANEC). An important part of these presentations was 
Commission européenne, B-1049 Bruxelles / Europese Commissie, B-1049 Brussel - Belgium. Telephone: (32-2) 299 11 11. 
Office: CHAR 05/46. Telephone: direct line (32-2) 2953315. E-mail
  
Art. 4.1 b

dedicated to clarifying the difference between the EU and the US very complex systems for 
standard development and implementation. Two challenges in particular were brought up by 
several participants: the risk that any harmonisation effort could carry in terms of loss of 
accountability and the difficulties in assessing equivalence of standards. Given the 
complexities at play many argued that the only way forward is to follow a case-by-case 
approach in the negotiations.        
 
 
Art. 4.1 b  
(e-signed) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cc:   S. Ratso, I. Garcia-Bercero, 
Art. 4.1 b
,  
Art. 4.1 b