TTIP
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, said: “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”
Since before TTIP negotiations began, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.
Thank you for supporting our move to make these negotiations more transparent.
Conclusion
In closing the inquiry, the Ombudsman welcomes the Commission's response to date and makes the following set of further suggestions. The Commission should:
1. Inform the US of the importance of making, in particular, common negotiating texts available to the EU public before the TTIP agreement is finalised. The Commission should also inform the US of the need to justify any request by them not to disclose a given document. The Commission needs to be convinced by this reasoning.
2. Carry out an assessment as regards whether a TTIP document can be made public as soon as the document in question has been finalised internally and at regular and pre-determined intervals thereafter (including, but not limited to, when the document is tabled in the negotiations). If no exception applies, the document in question should be published proactively by the Commission. If a document cannot be made public proactively, the document reference (and, if possible, its title) should be made public, along with an explanation as to why the document cannot be made available.
3. Ensure that the list of TTIP documents to be made available on its dedicated website on trade policy is comprehensive.
4. Publish on its website the many TTIP documents it has already released in response to access to documents requests.
5. Take into account the relevant suggestions outlined in the 'Public participation' section of the Ombudsman's public consultation report.
6. Extend the transparency obligations in relation to meetings with professional organisations or self-employed individuals, in the context of TTIP, to the levels of Director, Head of Unit and negotiator. This should include the names of all those involved in such meetings.
7. Proactively publish meeting agendas and records of meetings it holds on TTIP with business organisations, lobby groups or NGOs.
8. Examine how to extend, to levels below the level of Commissioner, the obligations (including in relation to the Transparency Register) aimed at ensuring an appropriate balance and representativeness in its meetings with professional organisations or self-employed individuals on TTIP. These obligations might, for example, be extended to the levels of Director, Head of Unit and negotiator.
9. Confirm that all submissions from stakeholders made to it in the context of TTIP will be published unless the sender gives good reasons for confidentiality and provides a non-confidential summary for publication.
10. Ensure that documents that are released to certain third party stakeholders are released to everyone, thereby ensuring that all citizens are treated equally.
The Commission will be informed of this decision. The Commission should indicate how and when it will implement each measure that has been suggested. As the negotiations are ongoing, it would be helpful if the Commission could follow-up within two months, by 6 March 2015.
Emily O'Reilly
Strasbourg, 06/01/2015
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