Financial Services in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) can deepen the already substantial ties that bind the United States and the European Union in the world's largest economic and strategic alliance. Since both sides have included financial services in prior trade pacts, they implicitly recognized that the TTIP would also cover this sector. But what will be included in the financial services chapter is still subject to debate. Particular concerns arise about how the TTIP could impact the still unsettled European financial reforms and the introduction of new US rules pursuant to the Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 or other potential US regulatory initiatives. The authors believe that the TTIP can complement the extensive efforts already in train in financial forums by making regulatory policies more transparent and by creating opportunities for trade and investment in financial services in both markets. A broader role for TTIP in harmonizing financial regulation is not an appealing idea—and not one that sits well with current US official thinking.
Crafting a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: What Can Be Done
A comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has important implications for both US-EU bilateral trade and the world trading system. If successful, it could strengthen transatlantic economic relations while also spurring trade reforms that could reinvigorate flagging multilateral trade negotiations. Both sides want the TTIP to be a big deal covering all major components of the commercial relationship. They can achieve the pact's ambitious agenda by (1) broadly aligning their respective trade pacts with South Korea and (2) deepening market access commitments covering both tariff and nontariff barriers to trade in goods, agriculture, and services. KORUS and KOREU FTA precedents are instructive but will need to be supplemented or adjusted in three areas if the TTIP is to succeed: intellectual property issues, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and the environment. In several other areas KORUS-KOREU differences should be easier to bridge, including services, investment, government procurement, and competition policy.
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.