Following a similar situation in the US Senate, the House of Representatives managed to pass the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for President Obama after all. It is widely understood that TPA is necessary to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a trade deal between the US and a number of countries of the Pacific rim. However, TPA has strong connotations also for TTIP, currently negotiated between EU and USA. Earlier, the House passed TPA, but failed to pass another bill bundled with it. Now the Republican leadership of the House managed to get the pieces of legislation through. Although this is a welcome development, now the battle restarts in the Senate, which will have to break a difficult procedural situation. Despite numerous setbacks, however, TPA is slowly but steadily progressing, introducing at least some optimism into the TTIP talks.

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