Germany Protests to United States Over Secrecy in Huge TTIP Trade Deal

[cali]

The German Government has filed an official note of protest to the US over the lack of access that its country's lawmakers have to documents associated with the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.

The controversial TTIP agreement, under negotiation between the European Union (EU) and the United States could lead to the world's largest free-trade area. Yet, although this could help to boost economic growth and create jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, there are concerns about the consequences the deal could have as well as the secretive nature of the negotiations.

<snip>

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German Ministry of Economy has instructed the country's ambassador in Washington to deliver a "public reproach that TTIP is negotiated beyond the reach of parliaments and with disregard for democratic rights."
Many of the documents pertaining to the TTIP talks are held at the US embassy in Berlin, the access to which is extremely limited, meaning that German lawmakers find it difficult to find out the detail of what is under discussion.


Read more: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20151113/1030034181/germany-protests-ttip-secrecy.html#ixzz3rguWsn4W

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Sputnik News? Really?

Sputnik is an international multimedia news service launched on November 10, 2014 by Rossiya Segodnya, an agency wholly owned and operated by the Russian government, which was created by a Decree of the President of Russia on December 9, 2013.[2] Sputnik replaces the RIA Novosti news agency on an international stage (which remains active in Russia)[3] and Voice of Russia.

Voice of Russia, the broadcaster which was replaced by Sputnik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_%28news_agency%29

[cali]

2. Perfectly accurate, but here

The German government has protested to the US authorities against the lack of access for German MPs to TTIP talks documents.
According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, the German ambassador in Washington was asked by Berlin to notify a formal protest to US trade representative Michael Froman and request that MPs can access documents related to the EU-US negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

The ambassador and the US official were due to meet Thursday evening (12 November) in Washington.
The German government wants to address "the public reproach that TTIP is negotiated beyond the reach of parliaments and with disregard for democratic rights," the instruction to the ambassador quoted by the newspaper said.

Snip
https://euobserver.com/foreign/131099

And just for you:

http://www.dw.com/en/german-frustration-builds-over-ttip-secrecy-from-us/a-18819097

[BelgianMadCow]

6. *grin*

thanks for posting, Cali.

[Scootaloo]

3. Glad to see you back, Cali

[Blue_Tires]

5. Sputnik? FFS

[cali]

7. Feel free to ignore identical stories from other sources in post 3 which I know you saw

while huffing in faux indignation.

[Blue_Tires]

8. So go get one of those links and post that instead...

And while you're at it, maybe you can explain why Germany feels like they are part of this deal all of a sudden? Someone in Berlin must not be able to find the Pacific Rim on a map...

[IDemo]

9. Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

[Blue_Tires]

10. You know, the economic minister telling

a paper-pusher at the embassy in D.C. to send a strongly-worded form letter to nobody in particular isn't going to cut much ice, right?? Especially since both Merkel and Obama are at G20 right now??

If there is really an issue, I imagine Merkel will bring it up with PBO directly instead of trying to employ a bunch of bureaucratic middlemen...

[cali]

11. I did. Right in front of you.