Pending trade pact with the United States, says Julian Assange, is casting ‘a shadow on the future of European democracy’

The full text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) now has a bounty on its head.

Launched publicly on Tuesday, the media outlet Wikileaks announced its creation of a crowd-sourcing effort that aims to raise a â‚¬100,000 reward for the full text of the the TTIP, the corporate-friendly trade pact currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and member countries of the European Union.

Financial pledges towards the bounty, said Wikileaks, have already been made by a number of high profile activists and luminaries from Europe and the U.S., including former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, esteemed UK fashion designer and environmental campaigner Dame Vivenne Westwood, journalist Glenn Greenwald, award-winning Australian film-maker and investigative journalist John Pilger, Belarusian philosopher and theorist Evgeny Morozov, and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

“Transparency needs a helping hand in the Eurozone but also in trade (TTIP) negotiations that affect it,” Varoufakis tweeted on Tuesday. “Join in!” he urged his followers.

Calling the TTIP the “most important thing that is happening in Europe right now,” Wikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said the pending agreement is casting “a shadow on the future of European democracy” with far-reaching implications for people across the world.

“Under this cover,” Assange said, “special interests are running wild, much as we saw with the recent financial siege against the people of Greece. The TTIP affects the life of every European and draws Europe into long term conflict with Asia. The time for its secrecy to end is now.”

As part of their crowd-funding campaign, Wikileaks launched this video:

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.

Via Common Dreams