European Union and United States trade negotiators met last week near Washington, DC, for a week of talks heavily influenced by the approach of mid-term elections in the US and amid increasing pressures from the EU to re-shape the negotiations.

The chief negotiators on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – Ignacio Garcia Bercero of the European Commission and Dan Mullaney for the US – said the latest, seventh round of talks (29 September-3 October)  had focused on regulation – an  important aspect of the talks, but a focus that is also indicative of a lack of progress. In a subdued assessment of progress , Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, told other European commissioners on 16 September that regulation was an area where “substantial” work was particularly necessary.

The focus on regulation also reflected De Gucht’s view that it made no sense to talk about lowering customs barriers and opening up the US market for public contracts before the mid-term elections in the US in November. According to the official minutes of the Commission’s meeting, De Gucht said that these factors had prompted him and his US counterpart, Michael Froman, to put on ice a planned meeting to review progress .

The political calendar, including the changeover at the top of the EU’s institutions, is just one of the difficulties complicating talks. De Gucht had told commissioners that progress on TTIP would depend to a large extent on the US’s talks on a Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 other countries. On the eve of the latest US-EU talks, talks between the US and Japan – the two largest countries in the TPP talks – broke up acrimoniously, when Japan’s economy minister walked out in response to US pressure to open Japan’s agricultural market.

The US is also coming under pressure from the EU to adjust its stance in the TTIP talks because of Russian economic pressure linked to the crisis in Ukraine. De Gucht travelled to the US in early September to press Froman to allow US gas to be exported to the EU “in view of the situation in Ukraine”.

It is unclear whether the commissioner was pressing for immediate US action. However, De Gucht did press the US to act swiftly to ease access to the US market for European food and vegetable producers hit by the Russian ban on imports of most European foodstuffs in August. De Gucht described the US as open to the idea and suggested it might be possible for apple and pear exports to be redirected to the American market before the end of this year. But he also hinted that the US might seek reciprocal gestures on a highly sensitive topic: approval for eight applications to export genetically modified (GM) foods that are now awaiting a decision by the Commission. The Commission’s minutes record that De Gucht “felt that that a decision on [the US’s] GMO export applications already submitted [to the EU] would probably make it possible to obtain progress on the Union’s fruit and vegetable exports to the US market, thus benefiting both parties”.

De Gucht’s pressure on the US for immediate opening of some fruit markets is another sign that the TTIP negotiations are diverging from the normal pattern of negotiations, where initial agreement is reached on the issues that will be on the table – and issues stay there until a final deal is struck. The EU has also long sought the addition to TTIP of a chapter on energy. Maintaining the ambition of the TTIP talks is also jeopardised by internal EU pressures to exclude an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism – an international system of adjudicating in disputes between states and investors. De Gucht warned other commissioners that excluding ISDS would have “serious consequences for the Union elsewhere in the negotiations”. The Commission is expected within weeks to summarise the conclusions it has derived from the public consultation it held on this issue.

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The political climate has also been influenced by pressures within the EU for more transparency. The Commission, the Parliament and the European Ombudsman have all challenged the resistance from EU member states to publication of TTIP material, and the parliamentary hearing of the incoming commissioner for trade, Cecilia Malmström, on 29 September revealed Commission opposition to the assumption by member states that all trade deals need the approval of national parliaments. The difficulties of maintaining confidentiality during the TTIP talks were highlighted again last week (1 October) when the EU’s position on regulation in the chemicals sector was leaked.