What are you hiding? The opacity of the EU-US trade talks | Corporate Europe Observatory
What are you hiding? The opacity of the EU-US trade talks | Corporate Europe Observatory:
While Commissioner De Gucht claims that “there is nothing secret” about the ongoing EU-US trade talks, notes of Commission meetings with business lobbyists released to Corporate Europe Observatory under the EU’s freedom of information law were heavily censored. The documents show that De Gucht's officials invited industry to submit wishlists for 'regulatory barriers' they would like removed during the negotiations, but there is no way for the public to know how the EU has incorporated this into its negotiating position – or even what has been asked for and by whom – as all references have been removed.
Last month Corporate Europe Observatory received 44 documents
about the European Commission's meetings with industry lobbyists as
part of preparations for the EU-US trade talks (the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership, TTIP). Most of the documents, released as a
result of a freedom of information (FOI) request,
are meeting reports prepared by Commission officials. The release of
these documents might sound like a generous act of transparency on the
side of the Commission, but that is hardly the case. The documents
arrived almost ten months after the FOI request was tabled and 39 of the
44 documents are heavily censored. The 44 documents cover only a fraction of the more than 100 meetings which De Gucht's officials had with industry lobbyists in the run-up to the launch of the TTIP negotiations.
Were no notes taken during closed-door meetings with corporate
lobbyists from, for example, the US Chamber of Commerce, the German
industry federation BDI, chemical lobby groups CEFIC and VCI,
pharmaceutical industry coalition EFPIA, DigitalEurope, the
Transatlantic Business Council, arms industry lobby ASD, the British
Bankers Association, and corporations like Lilly, Citi and BMW?
Corporate Europe Observatory has
