KEMAL KİRİŞCİ
January 2015
Istanbul Policy Center Bankalar Caddesi No: 2 Minerva Han 34420 Karaköy, İstanbul TURKEY +90 212 292 49 39 +90 212 292 49 57 @ ipc@sabanciuniv.edu w ipc.sabanciuniv.edu ISBN: 978-605-4348-92-3 -
Introduction:
The 7th round of negotiations between the EU and the United States to create a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) were completed early in October. 2 The negotiations have reached the point where both sides have started to work on preparing draft texts that will eventually constitute the basis of an agreement. In spite of frequent references to problems associated with TTIP and speculations that the likeli - hood of an agreement emerging before the end of the Obama administration is slim, the leadership on both sides remains committed to the project. There are calls for completing negotiations by the end of next year. This is not surprising, because TTIP aspires to create a “truly seamless Atlantic market”, 3 comprising close to one billion consumers generating economic activity worth 34 trillion U.S. Dollars (USD) (see Table 1), more than almost forty times the Turkish GDP. In 2013, the EU and U.S. engaged in trade in goods equaling 787 billion USD, 4 corresponding to roughly 2.2 billion USD per day. Furthermore, TTIP also aspires to put into place a “new trade rulebook” on issues like labor, environment, investment, competition policies and state-owned enterprises. These new standards would implement a “state of the art” trade regime and set a precedent for future trade negotiations. Hence, it is not surprising that a growing number of countries ranging from Brazil to Canada, Israel, Mexico, Norway, and Switzerland are taking an interest in TTIP, and some are exploring ways of joining it. Turkey is one such country, and may well have been one of the first, if not the first, country to raise the issue of being included in the nego - tiations and expressing interest in joining TTIP. Then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wrote a letter to President Obama on March 2013 seeking his support on the issue of Turkey’s inclusion in TTIP, and then raised the subject once more during his visit to Washington, DC, in May of that year. Subsequently, this interest has been expressed on numerous occasions at both governmental and civil society levels. However, so far, the issues of TTIP’s enlargement in general and Turkey’s inclusion in particular remain unresolved.
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