EU-US FTA talks could spell trouble

It has been announced that the European Union and the United States will start talks on a transatlantic trade and investment partnership by June 2013. The plan to put a Free Trade Agreement in place within two years has been hailed by many on both sides.

One former deputy US trade representative, Karan Bhatia, said the free trade agreement would not cost taxpayers any money and it would be a "great, untapped stimulus". To some, such as Sir Peter Westmacott, the British Ambassador to the US, it seems like the Holy Grail for resuscitating their economies. In fact, the European Commission has lost no time in readying authorization for the negotiations and it has asked member states for their speedy ratification.

However, the proposed EU-US FTA is nothing new. As early as 1995, the EU and the US launched the Transatlantic Business Dialogue with an aim to automatically apply on both sides trade rules that were ratified by one side or the other. Three years later the Transatlantic Economic Partnership was initiated to knock down trade barriers and boost growth. Yet it was only in 2007 that the Transatlantic Economic Council was set up as an overseer of bilateral business relations. All of these were once big ideas, but none has so far yielded much beyond talks and paperwork.