Glyn Moody takes to task several claims to transparency made in the European Commission’s recently published document « The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): We’re listening and engaging ».
Moody debunks several statements meant to argue that negotiations have been as transparent as feasible. Three open consultations that that Commission claims to have run on the transatlantic negotiations, went unnoticed by Moody who has been following the issue. Moreover, the fourth consultation, to be launched soon, is narrow in scope as « the public will be asked for comments to « improvements » […] [to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system], which suggests that we will not be given the option to reject the idea completely. »
He quotes the document: « DG TRADE is organising a second Civil Society Dialogue to discuss progress and to exchange views on the TTIP » but goes on to explain that « out of the 196 entities registered as taking part, only about 30 were from civil society: the rest were – you guessed it – from companies and their lobbying organisations. »
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2014/03/ttip-update-xx/index.htm