Greenpeace leaks US-EU trade deal
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GREENPEACE claimed yesterday that a massive trade deal between the United States and European Union would place corporate interests above the environment and consumer safety, as it released classified documents from the negotiations.
The campaign group published 248 pages online to “shine a light” on the closed-door talks to forge a so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would be the world’s largest bilateral trade and investment agreement.
“This treaty is threatening to have far reaching implications for the environment and the lives of more than 800 million citizens in the EU and US,” it said as it presented the documents in Berlin.
Both Washington and Brussels want the TTIP completed this year before US President Barack Obama leaves office, but the deal in the making has faced mounting opposition on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Europe there is deep suspicion that the trade and investment deal will erode social, ecological and consumer protections to the advantage of big business.
Greenpeace said the papers show, for example, that the US wants to be able to scrap existing EU rules in areas such as food labeling or approval of dangerous chemicals if they spell barriers to free trade.
“TTIP is about a huge transfer of power from people to big business,” the group said, having also projected an image of a classified text passage onto the facade of Berlin’s parliament building.
In Brussels, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said the papers “reflect each side’s negotiating position, nothing else. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are areas where the EU and the US have different views.”
“It begs to be said, again and again: no EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment,” Malmstrom said in a blog.
“That does not mean the parties will meet halfway. In areas where we are too far apart in a negotiation, we simply will not agree. In that sense, many of today’s alarmist headlines are a storm in a teacup,” she said.
Greenpeace said the cache, a snapshot from ongoing talks, represents two-thirds of the TTIP draft as of the latest round of talks last month, and covers a range of sectors from telecoms to autos to agriculture.
In Europe, there is opposition to allowing more imports of US agricultural products due to concerns about genetically modified foods.
EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero dismissed Greenpeace’s comments on the precautionary principle, adding: “We have made crystal clear that we would not agree on anything that implies changes of our regulatory regime on GMOs (genetically modified organisms).”
The negotiators aim to have “consolidated texts” by July, when a 14th round of talks is due to be held. They would then seek to settle the thornier issues in the second half of the year.
A survey published last month by the Bertelsmann Foundation showed waning support for a TTIP deal in Germany and the US after three years of negotiations.
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