The European Union and the United States will kick off talks today which may help lead to the creation of the biggest free-trade agreement in the world despite objections by France against a possible free-flow of rabidly rank Hollywood material, harming its films and culture.
Such a trade deal is touted as a potentially huge boost to business, economic growth and job creation, but the culture issue is seen as potentially offering a bargaining chip to the US side. If the EU-US deal is done, it would be the world's largest free trade agreement with bilateral trade in goods last year stood at 500 billion euros, with another 280 billion euros in services and trillions in investment flows. The EU says an FTA would add about 119 billion euros annually to the EU economy, and 95 billion euros for the US.
US president Barack Obama, who is in England for the for G8 summit in Northern Ireland and the EU leaders are prepared to announce the formal start of talks on the FTA, just days after the EU thrashed out a last-minute deal to keep the French happy. But the head of the EU executive Jose Manuel Barroso who is also at the summit along with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, weighed in with an unusually outspoken criticism of France for its "reactionary" behaviour to defend its audiovisual and cultural industry.
"Some say they belong to the Left, but in fact they are culturally extremely reactionary," the president of the European Commission said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune today. British prime minister David Cameron, who is hosting the G8 meeting of leading industrialised nations, made no mention of the row with France as he hailed the deal.
