EU-US TTIP deal may fail due to Greenpeace leak
What's the story
A top French trade official said that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks may stall as US' reluctance to make concessions had been revealed. The TTIP is facing scrutiny after the Greenpeace Netherlands leaked 248 secret pages of the controversial trade deal. The leak revealed that the TTIP would give preference to corporate interests over environmental and consumer safety concerns.
TTIP
What is the TTIP?
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a trade agreement between EU and US. The deal is undergoing negotiations and its main three primary domains are: market access; specific regulation; and broader rules and principles and modes of co-operation. According to EU, TTIP would advance EU's economy by €120 billion, the US economy by €90 billion and the rest of the world by €100 billion.
Information
Wikileaks demands that TTIP documents be leaked
In 2015, the TTIP had come under wikileaks scanner which had asked that the TTIP negotiating documents should to be leaked.
2 May 2016
Greenpeace leaks 148 documents of the controversial TTIP deal
The environmental activist group Greenpeace Netherlands leaked the documents pertaining to the TTIP trade deal between the EU and the US. The 148 documents leaked account for almost 2/3 of the text on the latest negotiating positions of the 2 parties. The documents revealed that American trade negotiators had pressed the European equivalents to relax significant environmental and consumer protections alongside certain other provisions.
Greenpeace Interpretations
What the leak contended?
The leak contended that TTIP would spark unemployment as jobs will move to the U.S. (lower labor standards and trade union rights) and EU's public health and education services would be privatized to U.S. companies. The food safety standards would be brought closer to US comparatively lower standards. Most importantly, companies would be able to sue government policies that resulted in their profit losses.
Reactions
US and EU reactions to the leak
The European commissioner for trade, leading the TTIP negotiations said the leak was a "storm in a teacup." EU said that the documents merely revealed negotiating positions and not any final outcome. It also rejected some of Greenpeace's points as "flatly wrong". Without commenting on their validity, the US spokesperson said that interpretations of Greenpeace were 'misleading' and "flat-out wrong at worst".Stop TTIP Bristol