Abstract

On October 23, 2015, the European Union and United States of America finished the 11th round of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (Ttip). We are talking about the biggest bilateral trade agreement in history, which aims to remove not only all the tariff barriers for the liberalization of goods and services exchanges and the investments simplification, but also to start a harmonisation regulatory process between the parties. In social terms, is Ttip a challenge for fundamental social rights promotion within a market liberalization process (considering all the negotiators references to the Ilo Conventions, to Core Labour Standards and to "Decent work" concept)? Or is it a risk of a race to the bottom of European labour standards, considering the big differences between European and Us labour legislations?