BRUSSELS-Aspects of a sweeping trade agreement being discussed by the European Union and the USA are of serious concern for consumers and the environment, Greenpeace said Monday, citing internal negotiation documents it later leaked.
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The environmental campaign group published 248 pages of documents online on Monday to “shine a light” on the closed-door talks on so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The leaked documents prompted Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for trade, to write on her blog that a “number of misconceptions are floating around”.
Asked about the leaks, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Ms. Merkel’s cabinet had a strong interest in a rapid agreement on an ambitious TTIP, adding that one in four of the country’s jobs depended on worldwide trade.
“I’m thinking of standards for health, food, and social, cultural and environmental issues”. For instance, the papers show that the United States is looking to weaken the EU’s “precautionary principle” that governs how potentially harmful products are sold, Greenpeace says.
TTIP aims to topple regulatory and tariff barriers to trade and investment between the United States and Europe, open up the EU services sector and improve European access to USA government procurement projects. ‘Otherwise we would not be negotiating’.
“TTIP will preserve, not undermine, our strong consumer, health, environmental standards, and position the United States and the European Union to work together to push standards higher around the world”, the USTR spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The TTIP, says Oulahsen, is “threatening to have far-reaching implications for the environment and the lives of nearly a billion citizens in the European Union and U.S”. Still, “we are going to obviously investigate this leak”, he said.
Also last week, French Finance Minister Emmanuel Macron said “there is no urgency” to sign a deal which France has to be sure is “complete, ambitious and which does not disown any of our interests”. This is the first time we’ve had detailed documentation of how these negotiations are actually played out, line by line. The rules impose higher trade protection standards on health, human, animal, and plant life.
There are also fears that a free trade deal could become a target in a US election campaign where economic protectionism and political isolationism have turned into key debating points.
Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month and urged that the talks be expedited.
Her chief negotiator, Ignacio Garcia Bercero, stated at a press conference today (2 May) that last week’s EU-US negotiations in NY, the 13 negotiation round, had been comprehensive and resulted in “reasonable progress”.
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It noted a “precautionary principle” was not mentioned anywhere in the leaked texts, leading the activists to conclude it had been dropped altogether.
