Yesterday the posting reported the latest disastrous proposals on ordinary trade. The other leak, obtained by the Greens MEP Michel Reimon, concerns financial regulatory co-operation.

This is a contentious area: the US is reluctant to harmonize financial regulations through TAFTA/TTIP because Europe’s are weaker; for the same reason, the European finance industry is keen to use TAFTA/TTIP as a way of undermining America’s more stringent rules. The leak is of note for the following section, reproduced as drafted (excuse the gobbldegook):

The Joint EU/US Financial Regulatory Forum shall agree on detailed guidelines on mutual reliance adapted for each specific area of financial regulation no later than one year from the entry into force of this agreement.

That is, the European Commission wants the US to sign up to TTIP without specifying how the new Financial Regulatory Forum will work, or what powers it will have, an effort to sneak in elements later that the US is currently resisting. This time it is the Europeans who are undermining regulation. The City of London must be behind it, of course.

The Regulatory Cooperation Body would be a new forum for corporate lobbyists to intervene even earlier in the life of proposed rules and regulations than they do now — and long before lawmakers have a chance to express their views. This would represent an impoverishment, not just of public policy-making, but of democracy itself.