Brussels, 19/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 19 November, the new Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, announced measures in the broader framework of an initiative steered by the vice-president of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, to guarantee greater transparency in the free-trade negotiations between the EU and the United States, the TTIP negotiations. A decision is to be made next week, Malmstrom announced.
“Ever since I took up my position, I have noticed there is a huge interest among the public in these negotiations, but also a lot of scepticism. The Commission is determined to negotiate a good agreement that will not lower environmental standards and protection for consumers”, Malmstrom told the press. “These are the most open and transparent negotiations we have ever had: finally the mandate is now public and we have a lot of documents published on the DG trade website, open to the public. But more can be done. There are still suspicions about what we are actually doing”, she recognised, pledging to “do all that we can to ensure increased transparency”.
At Wednesday's meeting of the College of Commissioners, the debate firstly dealt with the best way of guaranteeing all members of the European Parliament better access to the documents to which only a limited number of them, those following the negotiations closely within committees and working groups, currently have access. This will be assured “in such a way that these documents will be read-only”, Malmstrom clarified. The College also discussed the possibility of publishing the EU's proposal texts, which the Commission has already shared with the member states.
“This broader openness to the public aims to demystify certain concerns surrounding the TTIP negotiations. I intend to listen to the questions currently being asked by many stakeholders and sectors today (…). We intend to consult more and report more after each round of negotiations, and we are exploring ways of presenting these results in the most user-friendly way possible. Transparency is a common goal that we share at Commission level. And we want to make sure that safeguards are embedded”, the Commissioner concluded.
ISDS has not gone away. Malmström also promised greater transparency over the “extremely sensitive” issue of the investor/state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS). The analysis of the results of the public consultation is drawing to a close and the services of DG Trade are trying to find ways of summarising the 153,000 responses as clearly as possible, the Commissioner explained. “This chapter for the moment is frozen in the TTIP, but it is still in the mandate. In the agreement with Canada, we have moved to have a much more reform-oriented ISDS regime than the current regime that dates from the 1950s. Many important improvements have been done to limit the scope of application and possibilities of abuse, to increase transparency, to define exactly under what conditions the mechanism can be used. I think this is something to build upon. But it is too early to draw conclusions on that, we are in a very listening mood”, she concluded. (EH)