, Spain, 18 April 2015 , Germany, 23 April 2016 , Belgium, 20 September 2016
Secrecy of content and negotiations The content of the drafts of agreement, as well as the reports on negotiation rounds, are
classified from the public, an arrangement that
The Independent criticised as "secretive and undemocratic". The Trade Commissioner has described the negotiations as "the most transparent trade talks ever conducted by the EU".
Potential negative impacts Politics, economy and society The Guardian described TTIP as "the most controversial trade deal the EU has ever negotiated".
The Independent summarizes the negative impact of TTIP as "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", or more critically as an "assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations". In his 2016 article
The Gift in the Age of TTIP: the form and sense of exchange in an archaic civilization,
Chris Hann stated that by adopting TTIP, the EU is complicit in market-driven global degradation, which, in turn, pushes Eurasian neighbors into deeper spirals of repression.
Labour standards, workers' rights and job security Anti-poverty group
Global Justice Now asserts that TTIP would undermine
job security as well as current minimum labour standards agreed in the EU.
British Labour Party politician
John McDonnell, former
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has described TTIP as resulting in a huge transfer of powers to Brussels and
corporate interests that will bring about a form of "modern-day
serfdom". Stefan Körzell, national board member of the
Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) has said "Whether TTIP can create jobs, and 'how many' and 'where' is unclear. Previous studies, ranging from those conducted by the European Commission across to the expertise of the Ifo Institute, fluctuate between optimism and very low expectations... Consideration of the negative consequences trade agreements can have, if environmental or labour standards are ignored, is often omitted. As of August 2015, the US had ratified two (prohibitions of child labour and slavery) of the eight
ILO core labour standards."
Democracy and national sovereignty, foreign investor protection Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is an instrument that allows an investor to bring a case directly against the country hosting its investment, without the intervention of the government of the investor's country of origin. From the late 1980s, certain trade treaties have included provisions for ISDS that allow foreign investors who claim to have been disadvantaged by actions of a signatory state, to sue that state for damages in a
tribunal of arbitration. More recently such claims have increased in number and value, and some states have become increasingly resistant to such clauses. Critics of TTIP say that "ISDS provisions undermine the power of national governments to act in the interests of their citizens", France and Germany have said that they want access to investor-state dispute settlement removed from the TTIP treaty. In December 2013, a coalition of over 200 environmentalists, labor unions and consumer advocacy organizations on both sides of the Atlantic sent a letter to the
USTR and European Commission demanding the investor-state dispute settlement be dropped from the trade talks, claiming that ISDS was "a one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither governments nor individuals are granted any comparable rights to hold corporations accountable". Some point out the "potential for abuse" that may be inherent in the trade agreement due to its clauses relating to investor protection. A recent study shows that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) indeed generates strikingly large and consistent opposition to the trade agreement and this effect of dispute settlement characteristic cuts across individuals’ key attributes, including skill levels, information, and national sentiment, which have been viewed as key determinants of trade attitudes. In December 2013,
Martti Koskenniemi, Professor of International Law at the
University of Helsinki, warned that the planned foreign investor protection scheme within the treaty, similar to
World Bank Group's
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), would endanger the sovereignty of the signatory states by allowing for a small circle of legal experts sitting in a foreign court of arbitration an unprecedented power to interpret and void the signatory states' legislation. Faced with such broad and vociferous criticism, ISDS was abandoned in September 2015; in its place, the European Commission proposed an Investment Court System (ICS). Not long afterwards, ICS was declared illegal by the German Association of Magistrates, though the commission dismissed the magistrates' judgement as based on a misunderstanding. For its part, the United States wants ISDS reinstated. In February 2016, Labour (UK) leader
Jeremy Corbyn said that human rights should be part of TTIP, describing TTIP as a threat to national sovereignty, workers, consumers, health and the environment.
Public health and environment According to a report in
The Guardian, TTIP draft leaked in 2016 shows "irreconcilable" differences between EU and the US in some areas, with the US demanding that EU compromise its "environmental,
consumer protection and public health standards".
Consumer protection and food safety Documents released in May 2015 showed that US negotiators had pressured the EU over proposed pesticide criteria. A number of pesticides containing
endocrine disrupting chemicals were forbidden in draft EU criteria. On 2 May 2013, US negotiators insisted the EU drop the criteria. They stated that a risk-based approach should be taken on regulation. Later the same day
Catherine Day (
Secretary-General of the European Commission) wrote to Karl Falkenberg (
Director General for the Environment) asking for these criteria to be removed. , 82 pesticides used in the US were banned in Europe and US
animal welfare standards are generally lower than those in Europe. In June 2015, the
BBC reported that food safety had become "a stumbling block" because of differing US and EU attitudes to
genetically modified crops,
pesticides (endocrine disrupting chemicals),
growth promoting hormones in beef and
pathogen reduction treatments of
chicken, that cause public health concerns for consumers and put European farmers at a cost disadvantage. Ban on
animal testing in the EU has been described by
The Guardian as "irreconcilable" with the US approach. According to
Joseph E. Stiglitz, TTIP could have a "chilling" effect on regulation and thus "undercut urgently needed action on climate that the Paris agreement requires". He says that industries that do not pay for the "social costs" of pollution in effect receive hidden subsidies, and that TTIP would give companies many more opportunities to sue governments over environmental protection mechanisms. The draft energy chapter of the TTIP was leaked to
The Guardian in July 2016. According to
The Guardian, this draft could "sabotage" European efforts to implement mandatory energy savings measures and to favor the switch to renewable electricity generation. The draft text obliges the two trade blocs to: "foster
industry self-regulation of energy efficiency requirements for goods where such self-regulation is likely to deliver the policy objectives faster or in a less costly manner than mandatory requirements". The draft also mandates that operators of energy networks grant access to gas and electricity "on commercial terms that are reasonable, transparent and non-discriminatory, including as between types of energy". This would open
feed-in tariff schemes to commercial challenge, including
that used by Germany. The
Green MEP Claude Turmes stated: "These proposals are completely unacceptable. They would sabotage EU legislators' ability to privilege renewables and energy efficiency over unsustainable fossil fuels. This is an attempt to undermine democracy in Europe." The EU's draft text for the trade and sustainable development chapter was also leaked to
The Guardian in July 2016. The draft, dated 23 June 2016 and marked "restricted", reveals new loopholes on a
G20 pledge to phase out inefficient
fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. The
IMF estimates these subsidies run globally at $10million per minute and
G7 ministers pledged to remove them in May 2016 in a meeting in Japan. The draft however states that "such a phasing out may take into account security of supply considerations".
Intellectual property and privacy Critics of TTIP argue that its proposals on intellectual property and user privacy could have a similar effect as the EU-rejected
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
Activism against TTIP s hand 3,284,289 signatures to
Martin Schulz,
President of the European Parliament, November 2015. In March 2013, a coalition of
digital rights organisations and other groups issued a declaration in which they called on the negotiating partners to have TTIP "debated in the
US Congress, the
European Parliament, national parliaments, and other transparent forums" instead of conducting "closed negotiations that give privileged access to corporate insiders", and to leave intellectual property out of the agreement. In 2014, an online consultation conducted by the European Commission received 150,000 responses. According to the commission, 97% of the responses were pre-defined, negative answers provided by activists. Additionally, hundreds of demonstrations and protests have taken place in an organised "day of action" on 11 October 2014, and again on 18 April 2015. In February 2016, Greenpeace activists blocked secret talks on the Investment Court System. A self-organised
European Citizens' Initiative against TTIP and
CETA has also been established, acquiring over 3.2 million signatures within a year.
Leaks In 2016, Greenpeace published 248 pages of classified documents from the TTIP trade negotiations. Greenpeace Netherlands said it released the documents "to provide much needed transparency and trigger an informed debate on the treaty". Already, some American producers are concerned by EU proposals to restrict use of "
particular designations" (also known as PDO or GI/geographical indications) that the EU considers location-specific, such as
feta and
Parmesan cheeses and possibly
Budweiser beer. This has provoked debate between European politicians such as
Renate Künast and
Christian Schmidt over the value of the designations. At French insistence,
trade in audio-visual services was excluded from the EU negotiating mandate. The European side has been pressing for the agreement to include a chapter on the regulation of financial services; but this is being resisted by the American side, which passed the
Dodd–Frank Act in this field.
US Ambassador to the European Union Anthony L. Gardner has denied any linkage between the two issues. European negotiators pressed the United States to loosen
its restrictions on the export of crude oil and natural gas, to help the EU reduce its dependence on energy from Russia.
Response to criticism Karel De Gucht responded to criticism in a
Guardian article in December 2013, saying "The commission has regularly consulted a broad range of civil society organisations in writing and in person, and our most recent meeting had 350 participants from trade unions, NGOs and business" and that "no agreement will become law before it is thoroughly examined and signed off by the European parliament and 29 democratically elected national governments – the US government and 28 in the EU's council" However, the
Corporate Europe Observatory (cited in the original
Guardian article) had pointed out, based on a
Freedom of Information request, that "more than 93% of the Commission's meetings with stakeholders during the preparations of the negotiations were with big business". They characterized the industry meetings as "about the EU's preparations of the trade talks", and the civil society consultation as "an information session after the talks were launched". == Effect on third-party countries ==