NEGOTIATIONS The fifth round of U.S. - EU negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) agreement will take place in Arlington, Virginia from May 19 – 23, 2014.  The negotiating teams will discuss the full range of T-TIP negotiating issues including, trade in goods and services; investment; regulatory issues; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; government procurement; intellectual property rights; electronic commerce and telecommunications; environment; labor; small and medium-sized enterprises; and energy and raw materials. STAKEHOLDER FORUM On the margins of the...

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The European Commission today publishes negotiating positions in five more important topics of current talks with the US on a future trade and investment deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This follows publication in July 2013 of our initial positions and is part of our efforts to be fully transparent about the negotiations (more on our transparency efforts). The papers released today include proposals for enhancing the compatibility of each other’s existing rules and regulations, or working more closely...

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Today, Secretary Penny Pritzker announced NEI/NEXT – a data-based, customer service-driven initiative to ensure that more American businesses can fully capitalize on markets that are opening up around the world. Through five core objectives, NEI/NEXT will build on Administration-wide achievements under the National Export Initiative (NEI), to help all businesses reach the 95 percent of consumers who live outside the United States. Under the NEI, the United States has had four straight record-breaking years of exports – hitting an all-time high...

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The Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger was recently officially named to be a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the USA. Zeilinger, Professor at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the University of Vienna, has served as President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 2013, and has also been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since then. Anton Zeilinger or “Mr. Beam“. Photo: J. Godany "Mr. Beam", "Quantum Pope", "Pop Star...

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Today, May 9th, the European Union celebrates Europe Day to commemorate the day in 1950 when French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed consolidating the coal and steel industries of Europe, binding nations so closely together that renewed war would be unthinkable. The "Schuman Declaration" is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union of 28 Member States with half a billion people living in peace together. The European Union’s founding fathers reacted to...

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