Bad timing. Last year the revelations of US National Security Agency surveillance in Germany and of Germans (including Merkel, various ministers and on down) recalibrated German-US relations. For Germans this was a blast from the East German/Soviet past, which the USA did not understand. This month the head of the US intelligence services in Germany has been asked to leave after yet more revelations, payments for information. German leadership is now reacting and TTIP is in the –ve wash over. The growing groundswell of anti-US sentiment has expressed itself in relation to existing big US corporate IT interests, ranging from data privacy to Google search and is now extending into those areas where future trading and investment relations are impacted.
But Germany is not alone, TTIP is losing public opinion support in France, Spain and Italy. When asked about “globalization” into which TTIP is lumped, there is a marked growing negative reaction. The ambitions of the potential partnership are perceived as so large, all encompassing, favorable to big business and especially US big business that some commentators, driven by public opinion, advocate delay or even shelving the project. This extends to the newly formed EU parliament that will pronounce on the partnership in the future.
Lastly, the perceived "secrecy of TTIP documentation and negotiations", against which TTIP supporters constantly battle, has an unhappy linkage to US NASA activities. This is hard to combat, despite open stakeholder forums (example cited last month) and adds considerable lengthy drag to the process. The wild card in all of this is, of course Ukraine, where EU public opinion could change rapidly supporting deepened US and EU relations.
My view is that the transatlantic relationship is so very important to all parties that, rather like a great marriage it goes largely unstated, marked by anniversaries silver, golden...and in the US EU case? So support TTIP today, share information about the clear benefits, link to this site for more information: http://useu.usmission.gov/mobile/ttip.html
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