By Celia Viggo Wexler
Wexler is Senior Washington Representative for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. This is a presentation given Dec. 18, 2013, at a gathering in Washington of stakeholders and some negotiators concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.
The Center for Science and Democracy seeks to strengthen our U.S. democracy by advancing the essential role of science, evidence-based decision making, and constructive debate as a means to improve the health, security, and prosperity of all people. The Union of Concerned Scientists has 350,000 members and supporters throughout the United States and puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet’s most pressing problems.
We believe that for a democracy to function well, it is crucial that citizens must have access to the information they need so they can government themselves wisely.
We are here because we feel the current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership process fails the demands of democracy.
Citizens, and our elected representatives, have not been adequately informed about the issues now being negotiated between the United States and the European Union.
Trade agreements always have significant impacts on their citizens. But as you know, this trade agreement is special. It is much less about tariffs than it is about regulation. It is our understanding that negotiators are seeking to find ways to “harmonize” regulatory regimes between the EU and U.S.
We know that corporate interests have been frank about their desire to remove “trade irritants” on both continents. This phrase appears to refer to what some of us would consider crucial public protections.
Releasing Draft Texts Not Revolutionary
But this presentation will not address the concerns many civil society groups have about the negotiations, many of which we share. Rather, my goal is simply to ask you to trust your citizens and your elected officials and give them credible, granular and detailed information about the state of negotiations, including access to any draft negotiating texts as they are being developed.
This request is hardly revolutionary. For example, when George W. Bush’s White House negotiated the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement in 2001, it published online the draft text of the agreement. Secrecy creates distrust, and most stakeholders find themselves bereft of the detailed information they need to actually be able to productively engage in these ongoing discussions.
And yet corporate participants in the trade talks don’t suffer any lack of information. What they’ve seen to date seems to make them happy. Indeed one pharmaceutical executive called the trade agreement a “lifetime opportunity.” (Quoting an article in Pharmaceutical Executive, September 2013.)
As you know, last June civil society groups from both the EU and the US wrote to Ambassador Michael Froman and to Commissioner Karel De Gucht expressing grave concerns about the proposed agreement’s impacts on food safety and consumer choice.
But the groups also specifically stated that they were “alarmed” that T-TIP negotiating mandates do not require the publication of draft negotiating texts and “fail to guarantee an informed public debate on the nature of the commitments under the agreement.”
Not How Democracy Should Work
This clearly is not how a democracy is supposed to work, particularly when these agreements are largely being negotiated between governments and corporations, with a smattering of civil society groups thrown in for cover.
We should not have to beg for disclosure. Our elected officials should not be in the dark about these crucial negotiations. This level of secrecy violates the core values that have been the foundation of our democracies on either side of the Atlantic.
We should not have to wait for WikiLeaks to give us some indication of how the talks are going, or what changes in regulations are being deliberated.
Free peoples in both the U.S. and EU cannot be expected to accede to a negotiated trade agreement that lacks even rudimentary transparency.
We justifiably are concerned that regulations to protect our drugs, food, quality of our air and water, our workplaces, and our financial security and to keep us safe from toxic chemicals all are on the table. Harmonizing regulations could preserve the highest and strongest protections. But the incentives for many corporate participants are to do just the opposite, to saddle the citizens of the EU and the US with regulations that afford the least protections and adhere to the lowest common denominator.
We justifiably are alarmed when there is discussion of a trans-Atlantic regulatory council that would have oversight over new regulations, intervening in a regulatory process in the U.S. that already is burdened by too many procedural hurdles and opportunities for special-interest interference.
We justifiably are shocked at the prospect of Investor-state dispute resolution, empowering an extra-judicial tribunal composed of private attorneys to decide disputes between sovereign nations and corporations, should a corporation find a national rule or protective policy undermines their TAFTA investor rights.
With so much at stake, is it any surprise that we are not satisfied with the secrecy surrounding these talks?
No Request for Live Broadcast
No one is asking that negotiations be broadcast live, or that sensitive discussions forgo any level of privacy. What we do request and have a right to is specific knowledge about the proposals that are being considered.
In a leaked “communications strategy memo” from the European Commission, it’s clear that negotiators fear what they term a “mushrooming of doubts” about this pending trade agreement.
But the advice of their PR consultants – making sure that the public has a “general understanding” of the initiative but not too much understanding simply won’t work. We won’t accept the bromide that T-TIP is “an initiative that aims at delivering jobs and growth.” Nor will we accept the uncorroborated assurance that the agreement is NOT “an effort to undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment.”
So how do you gain the public’s trust? Let us know what’s at stake. Let us see for ourselves whether the draft texts of these agreements actually do leave public protections intact or even enhance them.
But do not expect us to believe you without proof. The PR professionals agree with us on this much. In that leaked memo, they also advised: “Given the breadth of the issues under discussion, which cover much broader elements of policy-making than traditional trade agreements, expectations of transparency from stakeholders are higher than in previous trade negotiations. The complexity of the potential deal also means that negotiators have a greater need for stakeholder input during the process (emphasis added) to make sure that proposed solutions to difficult issues are effective.
It is in the best interests of both negotiators, and the public, to conduct these negotiations as transparently as possible.
When Sen. Elizabeth Warren opposed the nomination of Ambassador Michael Froman as US Trade Negotiator, she did so because of the secrecy in the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership talks. Sen. Warren’s words are worth repeating today. “Many people are deeply interested in tracking the trajectory of trade negotiations, but if they do not have reasonable access to see the terms of the agreements under negotiation, then they can’t have any real input. Without transparency, the benefits from an open marketplace of ideas are reduced enormously.”
Filed under: IFTI Watch