/ world today news/ The European Commission will open a secret room in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), where people’s representatives and ministers will be able to read the agreements reached on the trade agreement being prepared between the EU and the USA.
Access to the documents will be at the maximum level of secrecy, and readers will not be able to take notes, photograph or record them. They will also sign a non-disclosure affidavit. The new acquisition will be introduced in all European capitals, announced the European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. The secret rooms, called reading rooms, will allow for the first time for the deputies to see, in addition to the European, the American positions in the negotiations, which until now were only available in Brussels and some embassies, “Duma” writes.
The issue was discussed in Brussels on Saturday by EU trade and foreign affairs ministers, along with the progress of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It became clear at the meeting that for now there are few consolidated texts, but according to Malmström, this will soon change.
Since July 2013, Brussels and Washington have held 11 rounds of talks. The negotiations were supposed to end at the end of the year, but the deadline has already been pushed back by at least one more year. The leak of the project to the press in 2014 caused scandal and protests in Europe, which led to the decision to lift the curtain.
The idea of the “secret reading rooms” is to quell rumors and doubts that the trade agreement with the USA will reduce the quality and safety standards of production in the EU and harm the rights of workers.
For the first time in its history, the EU provides details on the conduct of trade negotiations. Now there are “secret reading rooms” only in the European Parliament and in some EU institutions, as well as in some embassies in European capitals. The responsibility for informing the national parliamentarians rested with the governments, and everyone arranged things at their own discretion, the “Duma” also points out.
The previous practice with a similar secret room in the EP (as well as in the American Congress) shows that it does not increase transparency, but, on the contrary, silences those admitted to the documents. Those who left the room did not dare to criticize TPTI even in front of their wife, because any of their arguments could be incriminated as indirect disclosure of secrets. At the same time, the texts are in such twisted legal language that the MP must be a narrow expert on international trade agreements to even understand what legal interpretations what he is reading can have. (We know about this language from already ratified treaties, as well as from leaked texts), Chavdar Naydenov commented on Facebook.
One clarification, he points out: What appeared in the media in 2013 was only the wishful mandate for the negotiating team from the EU. In fact, the two countries have so far only agreed to a small number of “consolidated” (ie united) texts. For the purposes of the US side, nothing official has been leaked. We judge them only by the orders of the corporate lobbies, which do not hide. Even what is known from the European and American side is scandalous enough. This is not a trade agreement at all, but a constitutional coup. Therefore, they must have the courage to declare their intentions publicly.
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