Greenpeace leaks TTIP texts, reveals strained negotiations

The controversial EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty text has been leaked to Greenpeace.

The documents have been posted at www.ttip-leaks.org, and in the main they've been picked over for their impact on environmental regulation.

On that topic, European commentators are hitting the roof, because it's clear that the US wants dramatic reductions in the EU's environmental protections. For example, any new European environmental or public health standards would have to go through the treaty process.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation would also get control over resolving disputes over issues like food safety and pesticide residue regulation.

As we noted last year after the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) published a detailed analysis of the treaty, Internet and telecommunications regulation is also a hot button issue in the negotiations.

American telcos and Internet firms believe the EU is crimping their ability to compete on a level playing field, while on the other side, Europeans believe America wants to dismantle their privacy protections.

In response to the leak, EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has blogged to say the leak is of a negotiating text that merely shows that there remain differences between the US and EU positions on the treaty.

Malmström says the EU's position regarding the “precautionary principle” remains unchanged, and that the negotiations will not “lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment”.

As well as food safety and environmental regulation, the US and the EU remain at odds over investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the treaty. The American negotiating position is that investor complaints – for example, from companies complaining that new regulations would spoil their expectations of a stable business environment – should go to a tribunal of private lawyers.

America also wants Europe to give it input into electrotechnical standards (for example, electrical product safety). ®