A few days ago, the President of the USA, Barack Obama, stated that TTIP could be signed before the end of his presidency within this year. Greenpeace is planning to impede those efforts since the organization has leaked 243 pages of the secret talks between the European Union and the USA. ThePressProject is in a position to ascertain that these documents are bound to put the European Officials in a very difficult position. Read the linked documents in OpenProject
Read the leaked doecuments here
The Greenpeace leak is not of the full documents of the ongoing negotiations which are taking place behind the well known, hermetically closed doors of USA and EU institutions but it does include an impressive portion of them. It also includes a very interesting EU internal document which was put together on March 2016.
Greenpeace decided to publicize the documents as soon as possible, even before it had the opportunity to analyze the full texts which are dense and complicated. The organization decided to focus on those chapters which apply to its field of expertise and main interests, therefore there are crucial chapters which still need to be seen in depth such as those dealing with communications.
Even a preliminary reading reveals how the TTIP will gravely affect public health and environmental protection while in cases such as the Chemical Industry, it seems that the US manufacturers are benefiting the most.
Why is this leak important;
The TTIP leak is of paramount importance since this is the first time that what we are seeing is not simply a report on the progress of the TTIP talks and negotiations but indeed actual documents of what is being discussed as it is being discussed. A good indicator of the possible importance of those leaks is the fact that one can already see that the previous “leaked” document which described the progress of the talks and was publicized a few days ago, was obviously an attempt to manhandle public opinion. Tomorrow's documents will show significant differences and omissions.
In the beginning of 2016, ThePressProject had revealed a series of documents on the lobbying that the multinational corporate companies practice. Paradoxically, the official reason given by both the EU and the USA on why the discussions are being conducted under such absolute secrecy is that should the negotiations be made in public it would allow those with interests to apply pressures. ThePressProject is in a position to know that the TTIPleaks will provide a final answer to that claim.
ThePressProject has repeatedly tried to show that the TTIP negotiations are extremely important leading to an über-agreement between the two continents. The changes that such a deal will impose in the citizen's daily life are of shattering proportions. The citizens of Greece have been among the first to have felt what can be done when institutions which hold powers beyond elected governments decide to agree and impose policies of extreme austerity or, as they would describe them themselves “market rules”. The negotiations are still ongoing under extreme secrecy and, had the Wikileaks not done the first revelations, it is possible that the deal would have been imposed without even going through the various parliaments of the countries concerned.
For all those reasons ThePressProject has decided to create a special edition in the OpenProject about the TTIPLeaks. The application includes all the necessary information, the entire leak as well as analyses and comments on every chapter. The complexity of the technical documents of the agreement requires every available help. Should you have the necessary knowledge please contact TPP at [email protected] in order to become a part of the document analysis team.