The European Commission will publish detailed reports on its negotiations with the US to forge the world’s biggest trade pact, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom said on Friday, responding to criticism that the talks have been shrouded in secrecy.
If agreed, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would encompass one-third of world trade, and proponents say it would deliver more than US$100 billion of economic gains on both sides.
However, opponents in Europe have voiced concern that it could erode EU standards on food safety and the environment, and said the negotiations have not been transparent.
Photo: Reuters
In a blog post, Malmstrom said one of her first decisions as trade commissioner when she took office last year had been to make the negotiations more open, but the debate “seems to have been caught up in a fog of confusion.”
To address that, she said that from now on the commission will published “detailed and extensive reports” on its Web site in all official EU languages.
The move came after Germany had urged the Commission to restore EU governments’ access to electronic reports on the state of the negotiations, which it had halted last month to end a series of leaks.
A spokesman for German Minister of the Economy Sigmar Gabriel said it was essential that politicians in individual member states were fully informed about the talks.
Gabriel is struggling to drum up support for the TTIP, which is backed by only 39 percent of Germans, according to a PEW Research Center survey.
Asked for reaction to Malmstrom’s blog post, a German Ministry of the Economy spokesman said: “We welcome that the commission has moved on this important question. This step must, however, also lead to more transparency compared with the process up to now.”
He said Germany would keep talking to the commission to make sure members of national parliaments were kept fully informed about the negotiations via access to “consolidated documents.”
So far, 10 rounds of TTIP talks have taken place and further negotiations are expected later this year with a view to finalizing a deal next year, Malmstrom said early this month.
One hurdle was overcome last month, when the European Parliament backed a compromise on setting up a new European court to settle disputes arising from any trade pact.
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