As the first trade agreement with a strong ambition of regulatory cooperation, the scheme for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), can raise legitimate concerns among citizens, more to do with the maintaining of their high levels of protection than the reduction of tariffs.

But any public debate on TTIP taking its cue from the negotiations’ more sensitive aspects rapidly veers towards a tendency to call international trade into question on a far broader scale, and this betrays a deeper malaise in the European and American middle classes with regard to the globalisation process.

Elvire Fabry takes a stand in this Viewpoint and focusses on three main elements:
1. Beyond protection, the challenge of precaution
2. Fading support for trade in the West
3. Assessing past and new challenges of the economic integration for western middle classes

A shorter version was published on HuffingtonPost.fr and EurActiv.com.