BRUSSELS (AP) – Visions of chlorine-drenched chickens and the prospect of genetically modified “Frankenfood” invading dinner tables across the European Union are proving serious impediments to the signing of a sweeping free trade agreement between the United States and the 28-country bloc.
Optimism that negotiations, which marked their first-year anniversary this, would lead to a deal to create a trading bloc of 800 million people representing around half the world’s economic output have faltered amid growing public opposition. Suspicions toward the U.S. following a spying scandal and electoral considerations on both sides of the Atlantic have also not helped to foster progress.
A year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama and his European peers sought an agreement to create the trading bloc by the end of 2014.
“There was much hype a year ago,” economist Andre Sapir of Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel said. “That was totally unrealistic …. It will take a long time, if it can be achieved at all.”
Analysts say a deal is unlikely within Obama’s second term, which ends in early 2017.