Trade agreements rarely hit the headlines so the controversy over the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or "TTIP", with accusations of threats to public services and excessive secrecy, has taken the European Commission by surprise.

Supporters of TTIP, a central plank of the new Juncker Commission's programme for reviving the European economy, ascribe the volume of noise surrounding TTIP to it being "perfect storm issue". It unites the Eurosceptics, the anti-Americans and the anti-globalisation lobby which distrusts free trade agreements in principal. These doubters scorn the best-case scenarios claimed for TTIP of a 0.5% or €120bn rise in EU output and a £10bn boost to the UK economy.

Last week American and European negotiators hunkered down in New York for the 9th round of talks in an effort to step up the pace of discussions. The storm over TTIP, particularly over the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause seen as allowing big business to constrain policy-making in signatory countries (discussions of that have been deferred until the summer), has helped bog down the process that both Brussels and Washington are desperate to complete before President Obama exits the White House in 2017. The Commission has clearly been rattled by anti TTIP protests, which have been particularly strong in Germany and Austria where activists have struggled to put the complex (and sometimes tedious) detail of trade policy onto protest placards.

While not exactly heated, the nature of the debate in Scotland reflects the relative indifference to business and trade that now prevails in the public discourse of a once aggressively commercial nation. Much airtime has been allocated to a perceived threat to the public sector and its workers, and virtually none to TTIP's potential opportunity for the manufacturers, service providers and other exporters. The emphasis, which is reflected by Scottish politicians, underlines the challenges for business, which is struggling to live up to Scottish Government aspirations to increase overseas sales in order to pay more of the taxes that pay for these services.

Thus the nitty gritty of how TTIP might ease Scottish companies' access to the notoriously complex and bureaucratic markets at both federal and state levels has received a fraction of the coverage of protests by bodies such as the #NoTTIP coalition (comprising seven public sector-dominated trade unions plus War on Want and Friends of the Earth). Worried that the health services, as well as education, postal and sewerage services are included in the negotiations, the lobbying group has called for "an immediate halt" to TTIP talks, before the power of member states to control public policy is weakened and 1.3 million Europeans lose their jobs through "labour displacement."

One (non-Tory) Scots MEP, told the Sunday Herald: "The nature of the debate on TTIP underlines how Scottish manufacturing is not being represented at trade union level any more. The old unions would have been fighting for it, not against it, because they would see that it helps jobs and exports of the things they made. Now the main concern is that it would damage jobs in public services."

In a tetchy session with the Scottish Parliament's European Affairs Committee, which has reflected scepticism TTIP, the Scots-born UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston of Parkhead in February defended the EU negotiating position, hit back at the implication that the European Commission was "lying" when giving repeated assurances that the NHS would not become subject to meddling by litigious US corporations, and prey to back door privatisation:

"The Americans are not looking for [privatisation], the British Government is not looking for it, and the European Commission and European Governments are not looking for it. I hope that we can come to the conclusion that they are not all lying. You might not trust the British Government, you might not trust the Americans and you might not trust the Commission either, but not everyone is making it up."

Livingston's more substantial point was that UK and Scottish lawmakers were using the alleged threat to the integrity of the NHS as a "political football", resulting in a waste of time and energy.

"Discussing this [NHS] issue also means that we are missing out on having a proper discussion about what you want to include and what you do not want to include in the agreement, how to make sure that we tighten things up or what has happened in the world in the past 20 years that might cause different choices. Because people are starting from the wrong position. That is quite dangerous, because it might mean that we miss things".

The "things" that might be missed would be fine print details relating to specific industries that would either ease or obstruct international business for the foreseeable future, and which, according to the Scotch Whisky Association and others, have the capacity to influence a host of future trade agreements, including with big or fast-rising potential partners such as Japan, India and Vietnam. Although there is still all to play for on the details (many businesses are unwilling to comment until they have seen the small print), important sectors of Scottish business have made it clear that TTIP, like the plethora of other trade agreements that have passed without comment in recent years, should be seen more as an opportunity than a threat.

Alan Hogarth of the Scottish North American Business Council dismisses the fuss surrounding TTIP and the public sector as "nonsense". He has been lobbying for more speed in producing an agreement rather than more circumspection: "We had a meeting with the US ambassador earlier this month and we've expressed concern about the slowness of the negotiating process. TTIP gives good opportunities for our members expanding into the US for example, Hawick Knitwear faces a 4 per cent tariff on cashmere jumpers that TTIP might remove.

"One of the potential big winners is the Scots life science sector, which would like mutual recognition of drug licenses. This would mean that if Brussels gave your drug approval you would not have to go through the same arduous process in the US. It would massively increase the opportunities for Scottish pharmaceuticals in the US market, that is potentially one of the big wins.

Hogarth notes drily that that the CETA the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is "considerably further forward" than TTIP.

"One suspects that people don't have same dislike for the Mounties as they do for Uncle Sam. Basically every generation lands on certain issues as badges of disapproval and sadly the TTIP issue has become popular with the kind of people who like collecting badges."

In a press conference last Monday, Cecilia Malstrom the Swedish EU Trade Commissioner, is jointly overseeing the TTIP negotiations last week rejected as "rubbish" the assertion that TTIP was "only for big business."

Citing the example of a small European company that makes bone surgery devices whose standards were currently not recognised in the US, she insisted that TTIP was just as much about SME's trying to make it in the States as it was about corporate giants striding back and forwards across the Atlantic.

"It's very much for small business agenda. Big companies can deal with double inspections, but small companies do not have the resources. SMEs have also raised how hard it can be to get information about what regulation applies to their products."

Colin Borland of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) Scotland said that his organisation broadly supports TTIP and that general election hustings have shown that some of his members are "quite up on it."

"There are pockets of concern about it, for example in textiles where they are alive to the opportunities that it offers, but they are aware that the priorities for small businesses are but the thing is the things that have to happen to make things happen to make it easier for big businesses to trade are different from small ones."

"The FSB's lobbying in Brussels has been pushing the small business chapter of TTIP which should contain things like principals on smart regulation, making sure that we are not tied up in red tape, and that regulations are proportionate and there is easy signposting for businesses, perhaps a single portal, which would allow a business to find out quickly what it needs to do business in a particular US state. Generally we recognise the obvious opportunities that are there, members who are small manufacturer are doing high end knitwear, seafood producers, high end electronic stuff, niche manufacturing of industrial parts, TTIP gives them the opportunity to escape the chores of getting particular licenses and could address such issues as duplicate testing regimes. If you just abolish tariffs and speed up customs that's fine as far as it goes but there is probably a bigger prize on offer here."

Not all key industries in Scotland are happy with the way the process is playing out. Owen Kelly, the chief executive of trade body Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), told the Sunday Herald in February that the US regulators insistence that financial services be excluded from TTIP meant that the process would represent "an enormous missed opportunity" for Scotland.

"We are good at financial services in the UK," Kelly said. "We are strong supporters of the single market in the EU, and TTIP would open up a similar trade area for financial services across the US" he said.

With a growing sense that negotiations are entering a new, more constructive phase, now that the lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic have had their say, more energy can be injected into ironing out differences. TTIP still faces many hurdles and the document that emerges is likely to displease as many as it pleases.

Scotland, whose businessmen have thrived in the US since the days of Andrew Carnegie or Johnnie Walker, will find out whether, on an issue of real substance, Brussels has delivered for them. If, as expected, it does, then more companies join the likes of Craneware (medical software), Skyscanner (online flights), First Group (buses) or Fan Duel (fantasy sports), Scots firms that have hit the bigtime in the USA.

Trading views: Scots on TTIP

Stephen Boyd, STUC:

"We are sceptical about TTIP's economic benefits because traditional trade barriers between the EU and the US are already very low and gains are likely to be minimal at best. A number of the studies that have been used to promote TTIP's economic benefits are hardly convincing and the economic models that they use are very sensitive to what they leave in and leave out. More important, we are very concerned that TTIP will lead to a general lowering of standards across the whole economy that it will be actively detrimental to the economic social model that the Scottish Government is trying to create in Scotland."

David Breckenridge, Scottish Textile and Leather Association:

Serious barriers to growth are currently in place and we hope that a TTIP agreement can be reached. Tarriffs are a huge issue for us not least because of the weird and wonderful discrepancies that exist [in the various US states]. The situation is really confused. Some products attract one level of tariff and others attract a much higher or lower level. Furthermore, there is not a level playing field, because there are countries outwith the EU that have zero tariffs on products that go to the US. We are competing directly with them, very much at a disadvantage because those goods usually come from low-cost countries. Their tariff rate is zero and we pay perhaps 14 per cent on some goods.

Scott Johnstone, Scottish Life Sciences Association:

Life sciences spans everything from making penicillin to making the bionic hand, in total representing about £3bn of turnover, growing in employment terms at 15 per cent between 2009 and 2012. Here in Europe we regulate to certain standards, but if we want to go to the US we regulate to a different set of standards. We find that a bit of a pain but we have been getting on with it for years now. We have companies that do not deal with the US because of the regulation and they are doing very well, but at the end of the day the US is our big goal. We work very well with the people there, and we see TTIP as a potential step forward in harmonising regulation.