The CEOs of Germany's leading OEMs are looking to help lobbying efforts to help promote the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to eliminate all major trade and non-tariff barriers between the US and EU. According to a Reuters report, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche and Volkswagen (VW) CEO Martin Winterkorn will travel to Berlin today to help push for an agreement to the landmark trade deal, which if signed, will be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history, and will bring regulatory alignment and an elimination of tariffs for economic blocks that account for roughly half the world's GDP. The Reuters report claims that if the deal is ratified it would mean estimated combined savings of EUR1 billion (USD1.13 billion) for the German OEMs.
Significance: While the German OEMs would welcome the TTIP as it would further increase the competiveness of imported models into the US market, the deal faces significant opposition from German labour organisations, which see a threat from cheaper imported goods from the US. Detlef Wetzel of IG Metall sent out a joint press release with the labour representatives of Daimler, BMW, Ford, Opel, VW, Porsche and Audi which said, "We will not accept a softening of standards for environmental and consumer protection or a hollowing out of worker rights and the right to co-determination." However, it is not the automotive union lobby that is presenting the main opposition to TTIP from within Germany, where advocacy groups and globalisation opponents have a strong lobbying presence. The US and the EU have been in negotiation since July 2013, and the eighth round of negotiation will begin in Brussels next week. However it is estimated that even aligning non trade-tariff barriers such as safety and environmental standards could lead to huge cost savings for OEMs on both sides of the Atlantic, with one study stating that combined European industry could bring cost reductions of EUR12 billion a year just from eliminating non-tariff barriers.
