G8 Summit: negotiations for historic EU-US trade deal announced
The G8 2013 Summit began with an announcement to launch negotiations on a landmark trade deal between the European Union and the USA.
G8 press conference to announce negotiations for a new EU-US trade deal. Photo: Andrew Winning/PA Wire.
The Prime Minister, President Obama, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso set out their plans in a joint press conference in Lough Erne.
Watch the press conference here:
The Prime Minister hailed a potential deal “that could add as much as £100 billion to the EU economy, £80 billion to the US economy, and as much as £85 billion to the rest of the world”.
He continued:
And we should be clear about what these numbers could really mean.
Two million extra jobs, more choice and lower prices in our shops. We’re talking about what could be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history, a deal that will have a greater impact than all the other trade deals on the table put together.
When we last met at Camp David in the G8 and we first suggested we could reach this moment here in Lough Erne, many doubted it would be possible. Everyone knows these trade deals are difficult. Some take years to get off the ground, and some never happen at all. So it’s a testament to the leadership and the political will of everyone here that we’ve reached this point. We must maintain that political will in the months ahead. This is a once-in-a-generation prize, and we are determined to seize it.