Mr. Colin Brown:

I thank Deputies for the questions. I am a legal expert and not an economist so I will do my best to respond to some of the points. However, I cannot promise to provide complete answers.

First, an important point about the issue of agriculture is that the Commission operates on the basis of negotiating directives given by the member states and which is often referred to as the mandate. We report every week to a committee of member states at different levels. The Irish Government is sitting at that committee. All the negotiating documents we prepare are discussed in advance with the member states in this committee. The proposals which are transmitted to the United States are then put on our website in order that everyone can see what we are working on and what we are proposing.

In the case of agricultural products, the mandate says that there should not be liberalisation of products which are regarded as sensitive. When the Commission is negotiating on agricultural tariffs, the negotiating mandate gives us instructions on how we should handle this and how we should pay more attention to and offer less in certain sectors as compared with other sectors. There is a balance to be struck. I can try to alleviate some of the concerns by saying it means that in terms of US imports of beef into the EU, they will be whatever is negotiated in the agreement. The Commission is aware of the sensitivity of this and therefore the actual access will be kept at a specific level. The scenario referred to of a huge increase of US imports of beef into the EU, is unlikely. I am not responsible for this sector but these are the issues that are very prominent in the minds of the EU's agricultural negotiators.

Deputy Durkan asked about the reasons for the deferral of the vote in the European Parliament. The Parliament was considering the whole range of issues that are subject to these negotiations. It has access to all the documents that are shared with the member states. The Commission and the Commissioner go very regularly to Strasbourg and the Commissioner was in Strasbourg this week to brief Members of the European Parliament. They are fully aware of all the issues which are well-known and are public. As another speaker touched upon, the reason for the deferral was largely that they were unable to reach a compromise which they thought they were in a position to put to the plenary session. They decided that rather than vote in the plenary session without having reached that compromise, they would rather have further discussions. The matter has been sent back to the relevant committee for further discussions. When that committee will decide to move forward is a matter of speculation and I cannot answer exactly when that will happen.

The Vice Chairman asked the reason for the need for an investor disputes resolution element. This is a very important question and it was also touched upon by Ms King. We need to be very clear that in the US legal system, international agreements like TTIP are not enforceable before the domestic courts. If a European investor or an Irish investor has a problem in the US, it cannot turn to the local court or to the US Federal Courts and ask for the application of the TTIP agreement. That is important because there are certain rules of non-discrimination which would be included in the TTIP agreement for the investment protection part that will not necessarily be found in US domestic law. Therefore, the investor will be left with no defence and no means to enforce the agreement because it is not enforceable in US domestic law.

The fact that the US has a highly developed legal system, just as is the case with the EU, is frankly not a guarantee that either country respects international law. For example, with regard to the World Trade Organization, there have been more complaints against the United States than against any other WTO member. There have been almost 130 complaints over the past 20 years against the United States. These complaints relate to allegations that the US has not respected its international obligations. To be honest, the EU and the member states have had approximately 110 to 115 complaints so it is not the case that the US is particularly worse than the EU as that the simple fact of international economic life is that problems of compliance arise with these agreements. This means that from our perspective if one wants to have these rules enforceable, if one wants to protect investment because of the sunk cost involved in investment which is different from trading goods, then one needs to have some form of international dispute settlement. There is a traditional form of dispute settlement that is used for ISDS cases.

However, the Commission does not believe that is the way forward. We must work much more on transparency in its work so that it can be more like a court, but we fundamentally believe that the international dispute settlement system is required. Otherwise the rules we are negotiating will not be enforceable and they will not bring the benefits that colleagues representing the SMEs are hoping for from this agreement.