TTIP and Labour Standards

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will follow EU and US recent trade policy practice to include labour provisions. These could limit the risk that liberalisation results in social dumping and promote upward change.

This European Parliament Policy Department A study concludes that the EU could take a precautionary stance and employ various instruments that increase the chances that TTIP will have positive social consequences. TTIP may combine the strengths of the EU and US approaches to labour provisions, while improving their weaknesses. More analysis of the social consequences of liberalisation and labour provisions might be stimulated and strong flanking measures at the EU and national level be foreseen.

External author: Jan Orbie, Ferdi de Ville and Lore van den Putte

• Primary Source

European Parliament: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union: Publications available via the EU Bookshop http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/directorate-general-for-internal-policies-of-the-union-cbf.cKABstF7wAAAEjwYYY4e5K/

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Study, June 2016: TTIP and Labour Standards http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/578992/IPOL_STU(2016)578992_EN.pdf

ESO: Key Source: Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) http://www.europeansources.info/record/transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip/

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: At a Glance: Study in Focus, July 2016: TTIP and Labour Standards http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2016/587292/IPOL_ATA(2016)587292_EN.pdf

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