Ambition Cometh before the Fall? the EU and Ttip

When the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations began at the EU’s behest in mid-2013 expectations were high for a swift, ambitious deal that would set standards for the world.  Three years on the negotiations are in serious trouble.  They are in particular trouble in the EU, where they have attracted unrivalled levels of public opposition.  The political significance of that opposition is heightened by the need for the agreement be ratified by national (and in some cases sub-national) parliaments, as well as the European Parliament and Council of the European Union.  Political contegian form TTIP has also affected the EU’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada; the EU effectively re-opened negotiations on investor protection and CETA’s ratification is nonetheless still in jeopardy in Europe.  As a result of this lack of internal coherence, the EU’s credibility as a negotiating partner has been called into question.  How did the EU, in aiming so high, fall so low?  This paper argues that the opposition in Europe to TTIP (and, by extension, CETA) is, to a significant extent, agreement specific.  It does not reflect a general turning against trade, as is arguably the case in the US, rather it is driven by concerns that specific provisions in the agreement will impinge on governments’ regulatory autonomy.   Agreements that are less ambitious or are with less powerful partners, therefore, are unlikely to provoke such opposition.  Thus the EU’s coherence and credibility are challenged only when it is ambitious.