United States | Washington, 22 September 2015

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström today met with her American counterpart, US Trade Representative Michael Froman, in Washington DC. The purpose of the meeting was to take stock of the ongoing negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Both sides agreed on the need to accelerate discussions and achieve progress in all areas under negotiation. To give an additional boost to the talks, contacts between negotiating teams will be intensified.

“We need to intensify the pace of our negotiations. That means stepping up efforts on both sides. Today's meeting took place in a constructive spirit, and we have a good momentum going forward to the next negotiating round. In the technical talks preceding the next round, we will instruct our negotiators to exercise creativity and flexibility in order to achieve progress in all areas,” said Cecilia Malmström in a comment.

The next formal round of negotiations will take place in October. This will also be supplemented by a number of technical, so-called intersessional talks.

At their meeting Tuesday, Malmström and Froman also briefly discussed preparations for the upcoming WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December.

During her visit in the US this week, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is also meeting with US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Caroline Atkinson, and Richard L. Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO labour union. On Thursday and Friday of this week, Cecilia Malmström will be in New York, holding the annual Isaiah Berlin lecture at Liberal International, and speaking to students and faculty of Columbia University under the headline "TTIP and Beyond: EU Trade Policy in the 21st Century".

Negotiating texts, fact sheets and other material about the TTIP negotiations are available here.