On 6th February Jolana Mungeng the cabinet member of EU Commissioner for Commerce Cecilia Malmström visited Prague at the invitation of Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Vladimír Bärtl to strengthen the dialogue on TTIP between European Commission and EU member states, their MPs and civil society in accord with the new transparency policy. Firstly Ms Mungeng met members of Senate EU committee and European affairs committee of the Chamber of deputies at their joint session. On that occasion Ms Mungeng denied that TTIP would have endangering effect on EU norms or that EU would have to sacrifice its core values, human rights protection for example, to the business. Also the timetable of EC negotiation with the USA with the intent to have basic outline by this year’s summer was presented without the need to sacrifice the quality.

Later on Ms Mungeng attended the TTIP Expert Ministry of Commerce Team session with the participation of NGO representatives and academic sphere with the opportunity of the participants to ask direct questions. Deputy Minister Vladimír Bärtl promised that similar meetings with the participation of NGOs and academics and their meeting with tripartite would be held on a regular basis. Eventually Ms Mungang stressed that TTIP won’t lead to unification of requirements to lowest possible level and that TTIP aims at establishing broader international discussion and contributing to bigger predictability of regulation for SMEs.

For more click here and here.