‘EU will be damaged if US trade deal is not agreed’

Failing to agree a trans- atlantic free trade deal would be damaging for the EU and send a message that the bloc has waning international importance, said Britain’s minister for Europe.

This year is crucial in making progress on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) before US president Barack Obama leaves office, but so far nothing has been agreed. Each side has accused the other of trying to protect specific industry interests.

“If the TTIP project fails I think that will send a really dismaying message about Europe’s waning importance in world affairs,” David Lidingtontold an event on EU reform. “We should not pretend that that will have anything other than a damaging impact both economically and diplomatically.”

Free-trade advocates say the deal, which seeks to reduce trade barriers, will create a market of 800m people, generate millions of jobs and serve as a counterbalance to Russian and Chinese power.

Those opposed say it will undermine European laws and allow US multinationals to bully EU governments into doing their bidding. In Britain, protecting the national health service from privatisation has been a key concern of many opponents.

Lidington said he believed this could be overcome and warned that without the pact, “the alternative... is that we wake up in a few years time and we find that the Pacific and Asian countries have set their own global benchmarked standards and Europe will be in the somewhat humiliating position of having to run after and copy what has been decided,” he said.

Prime minister David Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain’s ties with the EU before holding a membership referendum by the end of 2017 if his Conservatives win a May 7 election.

Reuters