Details of a US-EU trade deal with “unprecedented public interest” were officially published Wednesday for the first time, but a European watchdog said that the revelations were insufficient, and that opacity at the behest of American officials could violate EU rules.
European negotiating positions on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) were revealed Wednesday by EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström.
The documents covered EU proposals on competition, agricultural safety, certain trade barriers, small and medium-sized businesses and state-state dispute settlement tribunals. Malmström said, according to EurActiv.com, that additional positions on regulatory coherence and sustainable development will be revealed after legislative deliberations and consultations with the US.
“It’s important that everyone can see and understand what we’re proposing in TTIP and–just as importantly–what we’re not,” Malmström said.
But European positions on market access, and quotas and tariffs, she said, were “too sensitive to be published.”
The publication also only shows one side of talks, and thus gives an incomplete picture of a deal that the EU Ombudsman described as affecting “future rules and standards in areas such as food safety, cars, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, energy, the environment and the workplace.” Emily O’Reilly also pointed out that the Trade Commission stated in November “that there ‘should be no intention to publish’ any US documents or common negotiating documents without the explicit agreement of the US.”
This lack of information could violate the EU’s own regulations. European officials, O’Reilly wrote, are “always legally obliged to comply with the rules on public access to documents” and commented that a July 2013 EU delegation promise “to consult with the US regarding release of information” does not trump transparency laws. Exceptions to disclosure laws based on diplomatic secrecy, the oversight official wrote, are designed to take into account the public interest.
“The US authorities cannot, however, expect that any proper relationship with the EU would be ‘undermined’ simply because the EU refuses to comply with an unreasoned or unreasonable request from the US,” O’Reilly said. “In this context, the mere fact of US displeasure that a document would be released, is not sufficient to activate the exception in relation to undermining the public interest as regards international relations.”
O’Reilly described Europeans’ “access to documents held by EU institutions” as a “fundamental right.” She said that European negotiators must press American negotiators to justify the non-disclosure of any document, and that the reason given by the US Trade Representative must be convincing. Failure to do so could undermine the democratic process, she warned.
“Accordingly, it is vital that the Commission inform the US of the importance of making, in particular, common negotiating texts available to the EU public before the TTIP agreement is finalised,” O’Reilly wrote. “Early publication of common negotiating texts would allow for timely feedback to negotiators in relation to sections of the agreement that pose particular problems.”
The European Trade Commission has said that it will “make the whole text of the agreement public once negotiations have been concluded–well in advance of its signature and ratification.”
Until Wednesday, however, the only information the public has received has come through leaks.
One document dump in December led The Corporate Europe Observatory to conclude that TTIP will grant economic elites an increased ability “to call a halt to proposed legislation which conflicts with their interest, or to re-negotiate existing regulation.” The EU position on “regulatory coherence” that was disclosed in the leak, the group said, was “remarkably similar to a proposal put forward by BusinessEurope and the US Chamber of Commerce.” Observers have said, if adopted by both parties, TTIP would amount to “an erosion of democratic legislative procedures in the [EU] member states and at the US state level.”
After other EU positions were leaked last October, The Center for International Law, Client Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense council also concluded that TTIP would undermine “health protective-laws” and public access to information on “toxic chemicals,” and would “erase important differences between EU and US laws.”
President Obama and Congressional Republicans have made the passage of trade agreements like TTIP a priority for the remainder of his second term.
In late December, The Washington Post reported that the White House sees Republican support of a similar agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as being crucial to its passage, with many progressive Democrats in opposition.
