EU-US free trade talks

EU-US free trade talks
By Euronews
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“What exactly does the EU-US free trade agreement currently being negotiated involve and what does it mean for European consumers?” – Andy, via Facebook.

Monique Goyens, Director General of the European Consumers’ Organisation, BEUC: “The free trade agreement which is currently being negotiated between the US and Europe aims at easing commercial exchanges between those two continents.

“For European consumers, this means in principle that we should be able to have more choice between imported goods from the US and European goods. This also should mean in principle that prices will go down.”

“But it’s not all positive for European consumers. What we fear is that this is done under conditions that are detrimental to our health and our safety because there is a risk that the negotiations will end up reducing (existing) European rules on food safety, product safety, chemicals and data protection.”

“All these European protection rules which we’re so proud of and that also give us confidence in our market may be undermined because American rules are not the same as ours, they are often less restrictive for manufacturers, and this may be the price to pay for more competition. So we, – as a consumers’ organisation, we will be very vigilant in order to prevent the opening up of the European market resulting in less health and safety protection for our consumers.”

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