Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will urge the European Commission to make public the negotiating mandate for the Trade in Services Agreement.

The Government supports the new Trade Commissioner’s desire to bring greater transparency to trade negotiations. Official EU documents pertaining to trade negotiations should, in the Government’s view, as a matter of principle be published when to do so would not impact negatively on the EU’s ability to secure the best possible deal for Europe.

We have welcomed moves by the European Commission proactively to publish information on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). For the first time the Commission has published the full text of the EU initial offer and the proposal papers put forward by the EU during the negotiations. You may find the FAQs on this site a useful initial source of information. The website address is as follows; http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/tisa.

It is the Government’s view that publication of the TiSA mandate at this stage could hinder these important negotiations but we will keep this under review.