TTIP: “Regulatory Cooperation” Threatens Democracy
45 civil society organisations have denounced the European Commission’s proposal on regulatory cooperation as an instrument to undermine democratic principles and the right to regulate in the public interest.
The proposal enables the US to exert undue influence at a very early stage of decision-making, before any proposal has even been considered by elected bodies in the EU. This is unacceptable, because it undermines democratic principles,” says Kenneth Haar from Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).
Not only is the US allowed to influence EU legislation, business is also continuously provided with an extra opportunity to co-write regulation.
The proposal provides big business groups with the tools they have been demanding to influence legislation. Institutionalising lobbying at the earliest stage of legislation strengthens business’ privileged access to DG Trade and its policy-making,” says Max Bank from LobbyControl.
The organisations are writing to Trade Commissioner Malmström, in order to express their deep concern with the new EU proposal on horizontal regulatory cooperation in the EU-US TTIP negotiations. The civil society organizations contend that it is a threat to democratic decision-making and regulation in the public interest.
The new EU position paper on “regulatory cooperation and good regulatorypractices” offers an insight into how negotiators hope to avoid future “non-tariff” and “technical barriers” to trade. While it is unclear precisely what form such “cooperation” would take, civil society is deeply worried that the proposals would entail several changes to EU and US law-making processes.
