European Trade Union Committee for Education

ETUCE participated in the two stakeholder events organised by the European Commission during the 6th round of TTIP negotiations, taking place from 14 July to 18 July 2014 in Brussels. During the TTIP stakeholder presentation event ETUCE explained to the negotiators the demand to entirely exclude education from the TTIP negotiations. ETUCE highlighted that the European and American colleagues stand united in the commitment to quality education for all. In the context of TTIP negotiations, this causes concerns as the inclusion of so-called "private" education services poses potentially serious risks for educational policy, for public schools and other educational institutions, and for teachers, students and communities in both the EU and the US. The ETUCE presentation is available here.

During the Chief Negotiators' briefing, the EU's chief negotiator Bercero claimed that the negotiators are dealing with the "technical" issues and consequently the political decision is to be taken at a later stage. Bercero declared that the regulatory issues are at the heart of TTIP, and the gains of TTIP are depended on this. He said that the regulatory issues were further discussed during the 6th round of negotiations, but maintained that until now no texts have been developed on the issue.

150.000 submissions have been made to the European Commission's public consultation on ISDS. Barcero said the process to assess the high number of submissions will take significant time. A report on the public consultation is expected in November, and the European Commission will then discuss the outcome with the Council and European Parliament.

"EU's chief negotiator is on the one hand emphasising the importance of including regulatory cooperation in TTIP, but on the other hand continues to claim that this is only "technical" work. The European Commission must not be mistaken that regulation goes to heart of democratic decision-making in our societies and it is therefore not a technicality to be decided behind closed doors," stated ETUCE European director Martin Rømer.

Concerning the European Commission's public consultation on ISDS, which has received a record high number of responses Rømer stated, "ETUCE insists that the European Commission takes very seriously the responses received to the public consultation on ISDS. Publishing a report is definitely not enough."