Oral hearing scheduled in Luxembourg
The EU's General Court
has announced a date for the hearing for Corporate Europe Observatory's
legal action, suing the EU Commission for withholding information
related to the EU’s free trade talks with India. The Commission is
accused of discriminating in favour of corporate lobby groups and of
violating the EU’s transparency rules. The case will be heard in Luxembourg on 11 January 2012.
The lawsuit (T-93/11) concerns
17 documents related to the ongoing EU-India free trade negotiations.
The Commission shared all of these documents in full with corporate
lobby groups such as BusinessEurope. But Corporate Europe Observatory
only received censored versions, with allegedly sensitive information
about priorities, tactics and strategies in the negotiations deleted.
The Commission argued that the public disclosure of these documents
would negatively affect relations with India.
But
how can documents that the Commission has already shared with the
business community at large suddenly become confidential and a threat to
the EU’s international relations when a public interest group asks for
their disclosure? This is the core question raised by the lawsuit.
What is at stake
The
case comes to court as the EU and India are speeding up negotiations on
a far-ranging free trade agreement, which they want to conclude in the
first half of 2013. The talks, which started in 2007, have been shrouded
in secrecy, with no text or position as yet disclosed to the public.
Yet, there are major concerns prompted by the scant information that has
emerged that the EU-India FTA will in fact fuel poverty, inequality and
environmental destruction. And that the EU Commission and the Indian
government have effectively handed the negotiating agenda over to big business (watch the video Trade Invaders).
What
is at stake in the lawsuit is whether the Commission can continue its
habit of granting big business privileged access to its trade
policy-making process by sharing information that is withheld from the
public. This practice not only hampers well-informed and meaningful
public participation in EU trade policy-making, it also leads to a trade
policy that, while catering for big business needs, is harmful to
people and the environment in the EU and the world.
A ruling will not be expected for several months.
A background article on the case can be downloaded as a PDF on the CEO website: http://
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P i a E b e r h a r d t
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)
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