- President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso
The closely-watched EU and the U.S. trade deal is one of the most lucrative bilateral trade deal in the whole history and is likely to be very beneficial for both sides. President Barack Obama suggested that a free trade agreement between the world's largest economy and the European Union is likely to boost growth on both sides as well as create new working places. He also called for economic structural reforms to make the deal more effective. In the meantime, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso also supported the deal, but said it may take up to two years to negotiate, as the substance of the agreement is more important than the speed of negotiations.
According to estimates from the European Commission, a full-blown EU-U.S. deal will go beyond conventional tariff barriers and in order to harmonize all the standards around 100 billion euros per year will be needed. It would also amount to the European Union equivalent of an extra 0.5% of the economic output and is likely to create additional 2 million new jobs. A more limited agreement, however, will fail to go beyond tariffs and would limit the potential benefits for the region's economy up to 25 billion euros. Although the majority of the EU bilateral trade deals usually took an average of three years to conclude, both sides are expressing willingness to make the negotiations as fast as possible.
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