“The Americans want to hold fast to their ‘Buy American’ idea. We can’t accept that. They don’t want to open their public tenders to European companies. For me, that goes against free trade,” Gabriel, who is also Germany’s deputy chancellor, told business newspaper Handelsblatt.
Gabriel said that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a free-trade treaty that the EU and Canada have negotiated, is a good model for TTIP.
Washington is pushing for TTIP to be signed before year’s end, but there is a strong opposition to the deal in many European nations, including Germany. Critics say the treaty would erode strict European standards for labor and environment protection and put the interest of international corporations above those of the nations they operate in.