EU, US resume trade talks despite spying row
13 Nov 2013 5:29 AM IST
The EU and United States resume talks on Monday on the world’s largest free-trade accord aiming to make progress despite damaging revelations of US spying on its allies.
This second round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was meant to have been held in October, but due to the US government shutdown had to be postponed just as the spy scandal worsened.
Since then the steady flow of charges has sparked bitter recriminations and demands in some EU quarters that the TTIP talks be halted altogether.
An EU official close to the talks conceded ‘there may be issues of trust’ involved, but stressed that Europe would not compromise its personal data protection standards even as it must discuss the wider issue of information transfer.
‘The transfer of data... is a key component of a modern economy,’ the official said, but as far as personal data is involved, it can ‘only be done so in compliance with (EU) legislation on data privacy’.
Personal data protection is a hugely sensitive issue in Europe given its history of brutal dictatorship of the left and right.
Also, there have been long-standing concerns that giant US tech companies see it as more of a commercial commodity than a sacrosanct human right.
This second round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was meant to have been held in October, but due to the US government shutdown had to be postponed just as the spy scandal worsened.
Since then the steady flow of charges has sparked bitter recriminations and demands in some EU quarters that the TTIP talks be halted altogether.
An EU official close to the talks conceded ‘there may be issues of trust’ involved, but stressed that Europe would not compromise its personal data protection standards even as it must discuss the wider issue of information transfer.
‘The transfer of data... is a key component of a modern economy,’ the official said, but as far as personal data is involved, it can ‘only be done so in compliance with (EU) legislation on data privacy’.
Personal data protection is a hugely sensitive issue in Europe given its history of brutal dictatorship of the left and right.
Also, there have been long-standing concerns that giant US tech companies see it as more of a commercial commodity than a sacrosanct human right.
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