美欧伙伴协定呼之欲出

It would be the biggest trade investment deal of all. The European Union and the United States are negotiating to remove barriers to trans-Atlantic commerce, a deal, which if it does get done, will be called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP. It's also controversial. Is it an opportunity to boost economic growth and household incomes or a business-driven agenda that would undermine national sovereignty and regulation?

The negotiations began last year and the two sides will be spending next week in Arlington in the US trying to make some progress. I spent the last couple of days at an event here in Brussels called the European Business Summit, where there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the project in fact I heard no voices against. A session on the negotiations was addressed by the man in charge of Europe's input, the EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht. I caught up with him shortly after he spoke.

I believe it will really give a boost to both our economies. So this gives a tremendously big, old market to, for example, old, small and medium-sized companies in the US and in the EU. We make away with debts a lot, but nevertheless it represents about €30 billion of oxygen, let's say, for the economy. It would open the public sector for European companies.