TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret

MEPs do have some real power, particularly since the Lisbon Treaty, but in practice that power is often like a veto: they can decline to approve some pretty big deals, but unless there is a credible risk of throwing something out in its entirety, MEPs don't necessarily get much input into the details.

At the moment, it looks like TTIP may be one of those cases. MEPs, and very recently some of the national equivalents, have only been given access to the current proposed text at all if they agreed to very restrictive conditions. Everything else is being done by people who aren't directly accountable to the public, and in most cases aren't even readily identifiable.

This is one of the reasons critics of TTIP will advocate striking the whole thing down. Some really do think it should be thrown out on principle as an affront to democracy, but others are playing a more strategic game, knowing that if the European Parliament starts to look like it actually might flex its muscles in that way, those promoting TTIP will be forced to open it up to full MEP scrutiny and get them back on side before there is any chance of the deal being successful.

One reasonable process might be having each country send their appointed representatives to negotiate initially, then bringing back a first attempt at consensus for proper and open scrutiny by national authorities. Then you send your delegates back to attempt to resolve any show-stopping issues and prepare final wording. Finally you ask each country's national government to ratify the final agreement. If really necessary, the national scrutiny/delegate negotiations cycle can be repeated first, though if that is happening it suggests the attempted scope of the agreement is too broad to be practical.

This way you would have a chance for people who were actually elected to influence the outcome usefully, without resorting to ongoing line-by-line revisions by thousands of individual MP, MEPs, US senators, etc. You just have to recognise that your delegated negotiators are not sent with the authority to make major policy decisions but only to reach a consensus that all parties can accept on areas where you are already broadly in agreement.

If they aren't able to do that, such that they can come back with a proposal that each country can clearly favour overall with no deal-breaking terms, then again they probably shouldn't have been trying to form such a complicated agreement about such controversial areas between so many different parties in the first place.

I'd say at least for the UK the main difference is that there is still a real prospect of holding the appointed parts of the government to account at the next election. Technically, we elect local MPs, with all the usual objections about first past the post. In reality, the party a prospective MP represents is the dominant factor in who wins, except in a few rare cases with perhaps an overriding local issue or protest vote. Consequently the PM (the first indirectly appointed role, normally determined by who can command majority support in Parliament) and government ministers (the next tier, effectively appointed by the PM) are still strongly accountable to the electorate in practice. If they do unpopular things, the MPs from whom the administration as a whole derives its power, and most of the officials as MPs themselves, will face the consequences at the next election. (This doesn't apply to the same extent for government ministers who are Lords rather than MPs, but appointments to the entirely undemocratic House of Lords is a whole issue in itself.)

This is quite different to the executive of the EU, where Commissioners sent by member states are infamously often failed but high profile national politicians who are either being given a pat on the back by a friendly administration or shipped out of the way for a while because they're too dangerous to keep around back home. Which mandate each Commissioner is given then depends on the President of the Commission, who in turn is decided through such a complicated process that I won't even try to describe it here. If you as a citizen don't like the way an incumbent European Commissioner is handling their brief, there is no real prospect of influencing them to change it. Even in the face of overwhelming public opposition to some policy, by the time the people have voted to change the balance of power in enough places that either the Commissioner is no longer appointed by their home state or the European Parliament can bring down a Commission, the term of office would probably be up anyway.

The people negotiating on my behalf are so far removed from my actual vote, that I could not possible call this democratic.

So no, when the final draft is released, we will have the european parliament get some short amount of time (easily too short to really grasp implications), no real debate, but a fast vote. Then this will have to be implemented into national laws (without another parliamentarian debate on a national basis).

Let's see, what you have to say then in regards to this process.