Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy O’Sullivan is aware that the European Union has full competency in the area of trade and matters of common commercial policy. The European Commission negotiates on behalf of the Union in that regard on the basis of specific mandates of instruction given to it by the Council of Ministers.

The TTIP proposal is one of a number of new-style trade agreements, as the Deputy is aware, that the EU is negotiating that not only covers tariffs, services and investments but also regulatory coherence and co-operation. It would be the world’s largest bilateral trade and investment deal. A recent EU study showed that this country would gain approximately 1.4% in GDP from the deal. This is not about reducing standards or increasing costs for SMEs; it is about setting down world standards for trade for the coming years. There is some distance to go in the negotiations, which are still ongoing.

I will come back to the Deputy in respect of his comment about the European Court of Justice.

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