Greenpeace: Leaked Documents Show U.S. Attempts to Weaken Environmental and Health Protections

The environmental group Greenpeace has acquired documents from negotiations for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP — a proposed trade agreement between the United States and the European Union — and the organization says the documents reveal a legal program that would exchange national sovereignty for rule by corporations.

The Guardian reports:

Jorgo Riss, the director of Greenpeace EU, said: “These leaked documents give us an unparalleled look at the scope of US demands to lower or circumvent EU protections for environment and public health as part of TTIP. The EU position is very bad, and the US position is terrible. The prospect of a TTIP compromising within that range is an awful one. The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environmental, consumer protection and public health standards.”

US proposals include an obligation on the EU to inform its industries of any planned regulations in advance, and to allow them the same input into EU regulatory processes as European firms.

American firms could influence the content of EU laws at several points along the regulatory line, including through a plethora of proposed technical working groups and committees.

“Before the EU could even pass a regulation, it would have to go through a gruelling impact assessment process in which the bloc would have to show interested US parties that no voluntary measures, or less exacting regulatory ones, were possible,” Riss said.

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—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.