European Public Health Alliance: Paralysis by analysis – public health concerns on regulatory cooperation in TTIP
The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), the European Heart Network (EHN) and the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) maintain their reservations about regulatory cooperation and good regulatory practices in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
They welcome the reversed focus of the text by having included the right to regulate for the public interest in the core text and mentioning public health but the risks of increased bureaucracy, decreased transparency and reduced democratic accountability still hover in the European Commission’s revised proposal published today. Moreover, the EU’s proposals risk institutionalising corporate lobbying.
It is claimed that the proposals are not legally binding but this is not borne out by the language in the text nor by the EU’s stated ambition for TTIP to be a ‘living agreement’. They have serious concerns about the boundaries of the regulatory cooperation as these are not clearly defined in the proposals.
They fundamentally disagree with the incorporation of principles of good law-making into a bilateral trade and investment agreement. ‘Good regulatory practices’ and ‘better regulation’ are not constant. Today’s prevailing interpretation of these concepts may not be tomorrow’s – they have no place in TTIP.
“There is a major problem with the ‘living agreement’ approach, which leaves the door open to come back to extremely sensitive and controversial issues later, such as trade in health services or pharmaceuticals. We have to assume this is intended to leave the door open to come back to tricky problems a later stage of the negotiations, perhaps when there is less public scrutiny,” said Nina Renshaw, EPHA Secretary-General and member of the Commission’s TTIP Advisory Group.
“Regulatory cooperation should never be mandatory. The EU and its member states must remain free to go ahead with regulation to promote public health in their territories irrespective of the US’s views – and vice versa,” stated Susanne Løgstrup, Director of EHN, member of the Commission’s TTIP Advisory Group.
EPHA, EHN and EASL have participated in a joint analysis of public interest members of the TTIP Advisory Group sent to the TTIP negotiators on the draft proposal before its publication which welcome some changes in the revised proposal while clarifying that some elements have not changed or have even worsened, to an alarming degree. The joint analysis points out that
- The scope of regulatory cooperation is still too broad.
- EPHA, EHN and EASL’s recommendation to secure an exchange of information between regulators on a voluntary basis has only been partially taken into account.
- A couple of sections use the platform of a trade agreement – instead of democratic decision-making – to decide on principles of law-making.
- The proposal partially aims at regulating impact assessments through TTIP.
