Exploring the Paradox of EU Transparency in TTIP Negotiations

With the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership (TTIP) talks for the first time, there has been an unprecedented level of contestation and popular mobilization against the negotiation of a trade agreement. The European Commission reacted by opening up access to information and making publicly available all the EU negotiating documents. By focusing on the two first years of TTIP negotiations, we show that increasing transparency has weakened the Commission’s negotiating position and thus its bargaining power vis-à-vis the US, especially because the later has chosen a different approach. We also find that the Commission was more secretive about market access aspects, which are both less domestically controversial and where bargaining is most likely to occur, than in regulatory related aspects of the TTIP agreement.