#eu-us

Civil society call for full transparency in EU-US trade negotiations | Corporate Europe Observatory
▻http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2014/03/civil-society-call-full-transparency-eu-us-trade-negotiations
▻http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/s119571398957059959_p71_i1_w1706.jpeg?itok=9ExNKK-7

Together with 26 networks and organisations, Corporate Europe Observatory has today launched a joint civil society call for transparency in the TTIP negotiations. The call is directed to European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht and is asking for the full disclosure of all negotiation texts as well as pro-active lobby transparency. It is open for more civil society organisations who want to support it.

Dear Commissioner De Gucht,

The undersigned organisations are writing to express deep concerns about the lack of transparency around the ongoing trade talks on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). We are calling on you to open the negotiation process to the public, by releasing the negotiating mandate, documents submitted by the EU, and negotiating texts.

The European Commission has repeatedly stated that trade and investment between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) are already highly integrated, and that the main focus of TTIP will be to achieve regulatory convergence by removing so-called non-tariff barriers to trade. This means that the outcome has much less to do with traditional trade issues such as tariffs, than with the regulations and standards that apply in the EU and the US and that affect every single aspect of citizens’ daily lives – from the quality of the food we eat to the safety of chemicals we use, the energy we consume, or the impact of financial services on each of us.

Civil society groups in the EU and in the US have voiced concerns that this might lower standards and remove safeguards across the board. They have requested greater transparency about the negotiations to address these concerns. The setting up of a stakeholder advisory group for the negotiations by the EU – although an improvement compared to previous negotiations – is far from sufficient to make the process fully transparent. Members of the group will have limited access to the negotiating texts under strict confidentiality rules, and these will remain out of reach for the rest of interested civil society groups and citizens.

The European Commission has argued that secrecy in this process is inevitable because this is a matter of international relations. If these negotiations are intended to affect domestic regulations, standards and safeguards on each side, then citizens have the right to know what is being put on the table, and how this is being negotiated. The standard legislative process in the EU allows for public scrutiny of each step of policy-making as well as full involvement of the European Parliament. We would urge that those negotiations should comply with the same level of openness. The process should also allow for public accountability of the European Commission for the negotiating positions that it takes. Given that many of the issues under negotiation relate to the environment, this would also reflect the EU’s obligations under Article 3(7) of the Aarhus Convention to promote access to information, public participation and access to justice in international environmental decision-making processes.1

Furthermore there are several examples of international negotiation processes, which provide a greater degree of openness to civil society than the negotiations on TTIP do, and whereby negotiating documents are disclosed........

#TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
#transparency
#EU-US trade negotiations

No fracking way - how the EU-US trade agreement risks expanding fracking | Corporate Europe Observatory
▻http://corporateeurope.org/climate-and-energy/2014/03/no-fracking-way-how-eu-us-trade-agreement-risks-expanding-fracking
▻http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/gallery/dangers_of_fracking.jpg?itok=qhY8S3vZ

A trade deal between the EU and the US risks opening the backdoor for the expansion of fracking in Europe and the US, reveals a new report by Corporate Europe Observatory and other groups. As part of the deal currently being negotiated, energy companies could be allowed to take governments to private international tribunals if they attempt to regulate or ban fracking and the dangerous exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels. Campaigners are urging the EU not to include such rights in trade deals.

This brief analyses the investor rights clause in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and how it could give special rights to companies to claim damages if they deem their investments (including future profits) are adversely affected by changes in regulation or policy.This would make it much harder for countries to ban or impose strong regulations on fracking for shale gas and other unconventional fossil fuels, for fear of having to pay millions in compensation. The report also argues that TTIP could expand fracking by removing the ability of governments to control natural gas exports.

More broadly, TTIP could likely thwart governments’ efforts to address global warming and reduce dependency on fossil fuels, the report states. It calls on the EU and the US to exclude investor-state dispute settlement rights from the agreement and from other trade deals in the pipeline – including the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

▻http://vimeo.com/88146142

No fracking way - how the EU-US trade agreement risks expanding fracking
March 6th 2014
Climate and Energy
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A trade deal between the EU and the US risks opening the backdoor for the expansion of fracking in Europe and the US, reveals a new report by Corporate Europe Observatory and other groups. As part of the deal currently being negotiated, energy companies could be allowed to take governments to private international tribunals if they attempt to regulate or ban fracking and the dangerous exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels. Campaigners are urging the EU not to include such rights in trade deals.

This brief analyses the investor rights clause in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and how it could give special rights to companies to claim damages if they deem their investments (including future profits) are adversely affected by changes in regulation or policy.This would make it much harder for countries to ban or impose strong regulations on fracking for shale gas and other unconventional fossil fuels, for fear of having to pay millions in compensation. The report also argues that TTIP could expand fracking by removing the ability of governments to control natural gas exports.

More broadly, TTIP could likely thwart governments’ efforts to address global warming and reduce dependency on fossil fuels, the report states. It calls on the EU and the US to exclude investor-state dispute settlement rights from the agreement and from other trade deals in the pipeline – including the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

#fracking
#TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
#trade
#EU-US
#high-volume-hydraulic-fracturing
#ISDS
#EU-Canada
#CETA Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

European Commission preparing for EU-US trade talks: 119 meetings with industry lobbyists | Corporate Europe Observatory
▻http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/09/european-commission-preparing-eu-us-trade-talks-119-meetings-indust

▻http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/meetings_with_stakeholders.jpg?itok=yneUHDUZ

In response to an access to documents request from Corporate Europe Observatory, the European Commission has released a list of 130 ‘meetings with stakeholders’ on the EU-US free trade talks. At least 119 meetings were with large corporations and their lobby groups. This means that more than 93% of the Commission’s meetings with stakeholders during the preparations of the negotiations were with big business. The list of meetings reveals that, in addition to the civil society dialogue meetings reported on the DG Trade website, there is a parallel world of a very large number of intimate meetings with big business lobbyists behind closed doors - and these are not disclosed online.

Negotiations on an EU-US ‘free trade’ agreement (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP) started in July this year amid strong controversy and public concern about the impacts such an agreement could have on environmental regulations, food standards, data protection and other issues. The European Commission, which represents the EU in the negotiations, has reacted with a propaganda offensive that includes a Q&A website full of misleading claims about the TTIP talks and a ‘@EU_TTIP_team’ that counters critical messages on twitter. In mid-July, the Commission made a huge deal out of the civil society dialogue it had organised in Brussels on the TTIP talks, posting dozens of tweets about the event, praising the “interesting discussion” on issues such as “the environment, transparency, development” with “as many questions from NGOs [...] than there were from Industry”.

The event also features prominently on the website of the Commission’s trade department (DG Trade), in the ‘Dialogues’ section where the Commission states that it aims for “a transparent and accountable trade policy based on consultations with all parts of European civil society”. But what is disclosed on the website is only a tiny part of the meetings that DG Trade has with ‘stakeholders’.

In April, Corporate Europe Observatory submitted an access to documents request in order to get an overview of the Commission’s contacts with industry, in the context of the preparations for the EU-US trade talks. The Commission’s first response was to ask us to "narrow down the scope” of the request, because it “concerns a very large number of documents”. Three months later the first result arrived: a list of 130 ‘meetings with stakeholders’ that took place between January 2012 and April 2013.1 A few weeks later another five meetings were added to this list. DG Trade has informed us that the minutes and other reports of these 135 meetings, as well as correspondence between DG trade and industry lobbies, will be released later, but that they “cannot yet commit to a specific date”.

#EU-US
#European_Commission
#TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)
#NGOs #ONG