EU Trade Chief: TTIP leak shows no new European information

“All of our proposals are public; they have already been published,” Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the European Union’s chief negotiator in talks with the U.S. on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership told reporters in Brussels on Monday.    The European Union’s chief negotiator in talks with the U.S. on a Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership said a leak from those discussions didn’t include any new information from the 28-nation bloc.
   “All of our proposals are public; they have already been published,” Ignacio Garcia Bercero told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “There is no problem at all in the slightest.” Still, “we are going to obviously investigate this leak,” he said.
   Greenpeace posted documents on its website on Monday that it said were secret plans from the TTIP negotiations. The leak indicates aspects that are of “serious concern” for the environment and consumer protection, according to a statement on the group’s website.
   “Any negotiations with a third party have to be conducted in an atmosphere of mutual trust,” Bercero said. “This document includes proposal from the U.S. in a series of areas at a time when the U.S. has always said that they didn’t want their proposals divulged to the public. Nothing extra from the European side has been made public.”
   EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem wrote in a blog post that the bloc wouldn’t lower its level of protection regarding consumers, food safety or the environment.
   The EU and U.S. have spent two-and-a-half years working on an accord to expand the world’s biggest economic relationship by eliminating tariffs on goods, enlarging services markets, opening public procurement and bolstering regulatory cooperation. U.S. and EU leaders have said the planned TTIP is a policy priority.