Op-ed by Tim Bennett for Emerging Europe
2016 is a very critical year for TTIP, and a conclusion of negotiations couldn’t come soon enough for small and medium size companies (SMEs). Nearly 95,000 out of the 28 million US SMEs export to the EU, while about 150,000 of the 20 million SMEs in the EU export to the US Most SMEs do not have the human, financial, or time resources that larger companies have to develop export markets when faced with tariffs, complex customs procedures, duplicative and expensive regulatory approval requirements. These barriers are cost prohibitive for too many SMEs.