On December 3, Cecilia Malmström met with Members of the European Parliament who are active in the International Trade Committee (INTA) for the first time in her capacity as the EU Commissioner for Trade. The topic for discussion was a fresh start on TTIP.
TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or as Commissioner Malmström put it, the biggest fish to fry in terms of trade policy, has been a subject of heavy criticism and political pressure already since autumn 2013. The Commission and the Council now joined forces to provide more clarity regarding TTIP and foster debate, as a part of their information campaign.
In practice, the new Communication tactics involve among others:
- announcing the results of the public consultation on the contested investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause a few weeks before Christmas;
- reorganizing the Commission's spokespersons' services;
- declassifying negotiation directives (mandate given by the member states; available here); and
- organizing seminars and conferences to combat the public’s myths and misunderstandings about TTIP.
In this way, more transparency should be “injected into” the TTIP negotiations. Civil society welcomes the willingness of EU institutions to engage more actively in a constructive debate, although some concerns regarding the arguments the Commission has so far put forward in defence of TTIP have been voiced.