event

Negotiating Energy in TTIP: A Conversation with Petros Sourmelis

Wed. October 14th, 2015
Washington, DC

The Carnegie Endowment’s David Livingston and the Lugar Center’s Neil Brown convened a meeting of Washington’s leading energy thinkers and members of the EU’s trade negotiation team for a discussion on the role of energy in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The dialogue offered an opportunity both for thematic experts to learn from negotiators, and for the negotiators to add more nuance to their understanding of the political climate surrounding TTIP in Washington, DC, as well as the impact that the recent finalization of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will have on the American approach to TTIP going forward. 

Discussion Highlights

  • The EU representatives briefed participants on the current state of play, explaining that crucial headway has been made but that these developments cleared the way for significant negotiations to come. 
     
  • Participants raised questions of strategy and sequencing with respect to the content of bilateral energy trade issues and domestic political developments in both the United States and the EU.
     
  • The negotiators described the potential for TTIP to serve as not just another—albeit large and consequential—trade agreement, but as also a new standard for rule-setting and international governance in an increasingly complex and multipolar world.

Though participants were hopeful that the resolution of trade negotiations surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership would facilitate progress on the TTIP talks, there is likely much more to be negotiated before the transatlantic deal is finalized, most notably in the area of standards, regulatory cohesion, and non-tariff barriers to trade. The discussion, a continuation of earlier dialogues with U.S. and EU trade negotiators, aimed to ensure that throughout this process, negotiators and the policy community contribute to a balanced, frank, and forward-thinking appraisal of the role that TTIP can play in transatlantic relations.

EconomyClimate ChangeNorth AmericaUnited StatesWestern Europe
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

David Livingston

Associate Fellow, Energy and Climate Program

Livingston was an associate fellow in Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program, where his research focuses on emerging markets, technologies, and risks.

Neil Brown

Neil Robert Brown is a fellow at the Lugar Diplomacy Institute of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Mr. Brown is a principal at KKR, a leading global investment firm, where he is director of policy and research at the KKR Global Institute. Previously, Mr. Brown served on the senior staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of Senator Richard G. Lugar, and he was a senior advisor at Goldwyn Global Strategies. As the lead for international energy in the Senate, he spearheaded major laws and strategic initiatives in energy security, infrastructure, transparency, and U.S. State Department reorganization and helped expand counter proliferation efforts through the Nunn-Lugar Global Program. Mr. Brown also serves on the boards of The Lugar Center, U.S. Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative advisory committee for the U.S. Department of Interior, Merton College Charitable Corporation, and Association of American Rhodes Scholars. Mr. Brown graduated with a BA from Harvard University and MSc and MPhil from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Neil is from Iowa, where his family farm is located.

Petros Sourmelis

Petros Sourmelis currently serves as Head of Unit, Market Access, Industry, Energy and Raw Materials at the European Commission. He has held this position since 2009, and saw his portfolio increase in 2012. From 2005-2009, Sourmelis was the Head of the DG Trade Unit in charge of international negotiations in the area of trade in services and investment. In this capacity, he was directly involved in the GATS negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda, in WTO accession negotiations, as well as in bilateral and regional negotiations conducted by the EU. From 2001 until 2004, Sourmelis was the head of the trade section of the EU's Delegation in Washington, DC. In previous postings, he served as Deputy Head of Unit for WTO dispute settlement matters and for the implementation of the Trade Barriers Regulation. He has post-graduate (DEA) degrees in international public law and international private law from the University of Paris-I. He joined the European Commission services in 1989.