The European Commission has dismissed the claims of the international non-governmental environmental organization - Greenpeace - that the agreement between the European Union and the United State on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will diminish the EU standards on consumers' protection.
The group claims it has a hold of 248 pages of secret documents referring to US' and US' trade negotiations regarding the TTIP.
According to Greenpeace, the US wants to ease the European restriction on genetically modified food, including meat that has been treated with hormones, because the Americans want the Europeans to give up their 'precautionary principle' that obliges lawmakers to be extremely careful in cases when strong scientific uncertainty arises in relation to a certain product and its negative impact on human health.
EU Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, has dismissed the allegations, stressing the leaked documents are a reflection of EU's and US' negotiating positions, and not the final agreement. She added that it is not particularly strange that the two sides hold different stances.
The EU and the US are negotiating the TTIP, whose aim is the creation of the largest free trade zone in the world, with more than 800 million citizens. A large number of opponents fear the deal will lead to lowering the standards, arguing the accord will be of use of the big corporations and of the detriment of the consumers and the national governments.