{"id":73328,"date":"2016-05-09T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73328"},"modified":"2016-05-09T12:33:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:33:29","slug":"about-the-ttip-leaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/about-the-ttip-leaks\/","title":{"rendered":"About the TTIP Leaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 May 2016 – <\/em>The monstrous Siamese twin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), has been in a growing puddle of dispute after 248 pages of its content were leaked<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The organisation behind the measure, Greenpeace Netherlands, had done its best to shed light on a document that remains obscured, clandestine and hidden. \u00a0The TTIP leaks were initiated prior to the commencement of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US held in New York (April 25-29). \u00a0According to the organisation, the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters with extensive annexes.<\/p>\n

The leaked and hefty portion constitutes roughly half to two-thirds of the text under negotiation, providing more than a decent snifter as to what European and US diplomats are up to. \u00a0They have met 13 times over three years in situations that were far from transparent<\/a>. Topics traversed<\/a> are bound to worry any individuals with even the slightest leanings to democratic representativeness. \u00a0\u201cWhether you care about environmental issues, animal welfare, labour rights or internet privacy, you should be concerned about what is in these leaked documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few pointers from the leaks are worth noting. \u00a0None of the chapters in the released portions make reference to the principle of General Exceptions permitting states to regulate trade \u201cto protect human, animal and plant life or health\u201d for \u201cthe conservation of exhaustible natural resources\u201d. \u00a0The omission suggests who, and what the negotiators are really barracking for.<\/p>\n

Similarly to the TPPA, matters of climate change get short shrift, notably in the chapter covering National Treatment and Market Access for Goods. \u00a0Showing yet again that a privileged corporate interest is inherently hostile to the commonweal, trade is deemed a domain outside the impact of climate change.<\/p>\n

Overwhelming floor room is given to corporate agents who are noted in the negotiations as important partners in the determination of foreign policy. While that position has been clearly articulated by US negotiators, the EU remains coy about industry influence. \u00a0The strongmen and women of capitalism are never far away. Little wonder, then, that popularity for such an arrangement is as low as 39 per cent in Germany and 50 per cent in France.<\/p>\n

Those at the European Commission, a body that has been historically indifferent to concepts of sovereignty, has taken the view that they were open all along, the true doyens of transparency. \u00a0EU trade commissioner Cecelia Malmstr\u00f6m seemed to find the fuss<\/a> over the leaks amusing. \u00a0\u201cIn the past year, the European Commission has opened up the negotiations to make our positions on all matters in the negotiations public. \u00a0After each negotiation round, we publish round reports as well as our position papers and textual proposals. \u00a0So the positions of the EU are well-known and nothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malmstr\u00f6m is certainly right in so far as the Commission has been spouting fact sheets, making assumptions that these are perfect in conveying pictures of accuracy to constituents across Europe. \u00a0As aspirational as they are, such publications only give a sense about some of the essential fault lines in the negotiations. \u00a0For one, they show that Malmstr\u00f6m\u2019s stance that no \u201cEU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment\u201d seems unduly confident.<\/p>\n

The leaks sent ripples through various parliaments in Europe. France\u2019s Fran\u00e7ois Hollande decided on Tuesday to make his opposition clear. \u00a0\u201cWe will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture, our culture and for the reciprocity of access to public [procurement] markets.\u201d \u00a0France\u2019s trade secretary, Matthias Fekl, even went so far as to suggest<\/a> that the agreement, in its current form \u201cwould be a bad deal,\u201d one which needed to be suspended. \u00a0Even prior to the release by Greenpeace, German Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had suggested that negotiations had moved into a glacial state.<\/p>\n

Such sentiments do little to deflate such ideologues as US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who puts such suspicions down to matters of misunderstanding. \u00a0\u201cI think,\u201d she explained<\/a> to the German magazine Der Spiegel<\/em>, \u201cwe have to do a better job of educating our peoples about the importance of trade.\u201d \u00a0In this cosy universe of commercial dealing, trade is all, trade is good \u2013 why fight it?<\/p>\n

The \u201cTTIP,\u201d pushes Pritzker, \u201cis a geostrategic choice to strengthen the trans-Atlantic bonds between two regions that share the same values and standards.\u201d \u00a0She proves deaf to questions about concerns of re-enforcing corporate market power at the expense of accountability, insisting on altering \u201crules and regulations that are standing in the way of doing more business together.\u201d \u00a0US President Barack Obama similarly intoned<\/a> on his recent visit to the UK that the TTIP would eliminate \u201cregulatory and bureaucratic irritants and blockages to trade\u201d.<\/p>\n

To that end, the Commission has attempted to give the impression that pitfalls can, in time, be papered over with the good sense of compromise. \u00a0As diversely opposed as the parties are, movement, of the negative sort, is possible. \u00a0Positions can, as was all too evident in the TPPA negotiations, bend. \u00a0In some cases, they can be abandoned altogether. \u00a0That remains the greatest danger: the document continues to flicker, and it will take more than Gallic opposition, Germanic scepticism, and general European stubbornness, to sink it.<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 dissidentvoice.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 May 2016 – The monstrous Siamese twin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), has been in a growing puddle of dispute after 248 pages of its content were leaked. The document continues to flicker, and it will take more than Gallic opposition, Germanic scepticism, and general European stubbornness, to sink it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}