Bernd Lange, the chairman of the European Parliament's important trade committee, has indicated that he now expects the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations will probably fail, following a major leak of confidential documents from the talks.

Greenpeace Netherlands has released half of the entire TTIP draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US, which reveal US demands in detail for the first time.

Although the EU has improved transparency recently, and routinely publishes its offers for each TTIP chapter, the US has consistently refused to do so. Even MEPs and MPs have faced extreme restrictions on what they are allowed to look at, copy, or even say when it comes to the US position. The new leak by an unknown whistleblower represents a major blow to US attempts to keep its negotiating demands confidential, and provides important information to the both the EU and US public for the first time.

US wants ISDS and regulatory cooperation

The new documents confirm some of the fears expressed by many organisations and commentators regarding two key areas discussed previously here on Ars: the Investment-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, and regulatory cooperation.

As Ars noted last September, in the face of massive public concerns about ISDS, the European Commission is proposing a modified approach, the Investment Court System (ICS), which it claims addresses the problems of ISDS. However, even though the ICS idea was formally presented to the US last year, one of the TTIP leaks shows that it was not even discussed during the 12th round, something that the European Commission's public report on the negotiations omitted to mention. This confirms earlier indications that the US is not interested in ICS, and will insist on including standard ISDS in TTIP, regardless of EU worries.

A leaked chapter on "Regulatory coherence, transparency and other good regulatory practices" indicates that the US wants all regulations, even those concerning health and safety or environmental issues, to be judged by the yardstick of their effects on trade: "When developing a regulation, a regulatory authority of a Party shall evaluate any information provided in comments by the other Party or a person of the other Party regarding the potential trade effects of the regulation that it receives during the comment period."

In practice, this means that companies will be able to challenge any new EU and US regulations that might have an adverse effect on their profits, as is often the case when new environment regulations are brought in. It is likely to make it much harder to strengthen laws that might disadvantage business but protect public health and safety.

A post on the War on Want site points out that the leaks contain a very clear indication of what the US wants to achieve as a quid pro quo for opening up its markets: "Any export gains for EU car manufacturers will come at a massive cost to European agriculture, with the European Commission sacrificing the small-scale farmers of Europe in order to force open US markets for major European corporations."

The key sentence comes in the particularly sensitive document entitled "Tactical State of Play of the TTIP Negotiations." This is essentially the European Commision's frank evaluation of where things stand in the TTIP talks. Here's what it has to say on the US demand: "progress on motor vehicle-related parts would only be possible if the EU showed progress in the discussion on agricultural tariffs." In other words, if the EU doesn't open up its markets to agricultural products from the US—which means things like beef treated with hormones, and maybe even chlorine chickens—there will be no improved access for EU car manufacturers.

US wants more GMOs in the EU

Perhaps the most problematic demand from the US side is that the Commission should allow foods with GMOs to be approved and sold in the EU more easily. In TTIP documents, GMOs are such a sensitive area that they are called by the euphemism "modern agricultural technology."

At the moment, the approvals process is rather slow in the EU, but the US hopes to change all that, as another leaked chapter makes clear: "Where a Party requires a product of modern agricultural technology to be approved or authorised prior to its importation, use or sale in its territory, the Party shall allow any person to submit an application for approval at any time." Although that sounds harmless enough, it would represent a major change from the present system.

Greenpeace Netherlands naturally singles out some concerns about the environment, and the fact that there is nothing about climate protection in the texts. In its press release it says: "Long standing environmental protection is dropped. The 'General Exceptions' rule, enshrined in the GATT agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is absent from the text."

Listing image by Greens/EFA