Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: Discussion

4:00 pm

Mr. Philip Kelly:

It depends on what a deal represents. If we wanted to do a deal on tariffs on goods, which are very low generally, we could go to zero tariffs on many non-sensitive goods very quickly but the real advantage to sophisticated economies is being able to sell services to each other. That requires recognition of professional qualifications and that we allow people move across the Border to look for and deliver those services. It requires mutual recognition of safety testing, product standards and a range of very complicated issues over which sometimes, including in the United States, central government does not have control. In other words, there are state level regulators who determine the standards. For the United States Administration, either in public procurement or regulatory standards in the US, to Sherpa and all of the state level interests, it is extremely complex. It is possible to do a deal relatively quickly with the United Kingdom, perhaps in a short number of years. The issue would be whether it was a comprehensive deal covering services as well as goods and whether it could cover investment and investment protection. It depends on what is in the deal.

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