What really bothers me, as citizen of an european country, why is it possible to have secret deals? If I don't know about such deals how can I call my representative to oppose them? Or encourage them to take the deal if it's a good one.<p>AFAIK, TTIP was leaked and that's the only way european citizens knew about it.<p>Why is it legal? Because all I see is corporations trying to make a sweet deal with governments, and the loosing side is always the people.<p>That's the only incentive I see to make deals secret.
> European Union ministers today admitted that a giant EU-US trade deal is dead <i>in its current form</i>, with drastic change needed to salvage any hope of a deal going ahead.<p>The devil, as always, is in the fine print - a cynic might read that to mean "TTIP has gotten such a bad reputation we would rather wait a few more years so the public forgets all about it, then try again."<p>In fact, I am tempted to quote Lovecraft here, except that a few years hardly count as "eternal".
Related analysis of TiSA, Sep 20, <a href="https://edri.org/tisa-leaks-set-alarm-bells-ringing/" rel="nofollow">https://edri.org/tisa-leaks-set-alarm-bells-ringing/</a><p><i>"Despite the rumours and assertions by several Member States that TTIP is dead, the fight for safeguarding citizens’ rights and freedoms via so-called “trade agreements” is far from over ... Greenpeace Netherlands has released another batch of crucial and worrying documents ... EU privacy and data protection standards are endangered and diminished in 6 out of the 9 analysed documents ... Exceptions for “essential security interests” are a Damocles sword over every single part of the agreement ... TiSA can limit the access and transfer of software source code."</i>
> Under a similar trade deal the government of Ecuador was ordered to pay German oil company Occidental $2.3 billion for, apparently legally, terminating a contract.<p>No. Occidental is a US company, the trade deal was US-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty ("BIT"):<p><a href="http://kluwerarbitrationblog.com/2012/12/19/icsids-largest-award-in-history-an-overview-of-occidental-petroleum-corporation-v-the-republic-of-ecuador/" rel="nofollow">http://kluwerarbitrationblog.com/2012/12/19/icsids-largest-a...</a><p>Such kind of penalties are planned by TTIP too, and I don't see the major EU leaders rejecting that approach.<p>Also, don't forget there's at least CETA and TISA, and CETA is to be signed very soon. More demonstrations are needed if EU citizens want to attempt to affect anything!<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ttip-ceta-tisa-trade-deals-brexit-laim-fox-about-to-take-its-place-a7218281.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ttip-ceta-tisa-trade-dea...</a>
So the US negotiators don't want to concede anything. So then one questions what they had in mind to <i></i>convince<i></i> the EU negotiators to go on with the deal...
It's also due to the US elections. The same thing happened last time. Negotiations will come back under a new name - and probably a slightly different scope and form, after the new administration has been designated.
Original source without the strange Google link:<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ttip-latest-eu-deal-dead-must-be-relaunched-transparency-say-ministers-a7325276.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ttip-latest-...</a>
This redirects here, can someone change the URL?<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ttip-latest-eu-deal-dead-must-be-relaunched-transparency-say-ministers-a7325276.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ttip-latest-...</a>
The issue people are failing to see, is that usually, countries are negotiating against each other, for their own perceived interest. The much valued "rule of law" only applies within countries, not internationally. There are no "international law" for trade.<p>So it's a murky situation from the beginning. I think the TTIP is an attempt to have a common ground to end up with something instead of nothing. Of course there are huge interests at stake here, and I want to be the devil's advocate for once to try and understand the real philosophy of the treaty without the cynicism and a more strategic view in mind.