Lobby group leaks EU-US trade details
Greenpeace says trade pact threatens food safety and environment
A SWEEPING free trade deal being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the US would lower food safety and environmental standards, Greenpeace said yesterday, quoting confidential documents from the talks.
But the European Commission said the documents reflected negotiating positions, not any final outcome, and the EU’s chief negotiator dismissed some of Greenpeace’s points as “flatly wrong”.
The White House and the US Trade Representative’s office also rejected them.
While it would not comment on the “validity of alleged leaks”, a spokesman said “the interpretations being given to these texts appear to be misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst”.
Greenpeace opposes the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), arguing with other critics that it would hand too much power to big business at the expense of consumers and national governments.
Supporters say the TTIP would deliver more than $100bn of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic.
Greenpeace Netherlands published yesterday 248 pages of “consolidated texts” for 13 chapters, about half, of the deal on the website TTIP-leaks.org.
“We’ve done this to ignite a debate,” Greenpeace trade expert Juergen Knirsch said, adding that the documents showed the negotiations, which had gone on for three years,
should be halted. “The best thing the EU Commission can do is to say, ‘Sorry, we’ve made a mistake’, ” Mr Knirsch said.
European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom characterised the leak as a “storm in a teacup”, and told an audience in Geneva the EU would not compromise its principles just to get a deal before US President Barack Obama leaves office in January next year.
“If it is not good enough, we just have to say, ‘Sorry, but we have to put this on ice’ and wait for the next administration.”
Greenpeace said the documents showed differences had become entrenched between the two sides. Ms Malmstrom said it was “not very dramatic” to say there were disagreements, and the EU was being as open as possible about the negotiations.
Mr Knirsch said the texts showed the US wanted to replace Europe’s “precautionary principle” — which prevents potentially harmful products from coming to market when their effect is unknown or disputed — with a less stringent approach. But Ms Malmstrom said the principle was part of the “acquis” — the laws binding the EU together — and Greenpeace’s assertion was not true.
In Europe, there is widespread opposition to allowing more imports of US agricultural products due to concerns about genetically modified foods.