Brussels – Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks launched a campaign Tuesday to raise 100,000 euros (110,269 dollars) that would be used as a reward for leaked details of a free trade deal being negotiated between the United States and the European Union.
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“It remains secret almost in its entirety, closely guarded by the negotiators,” WikiLeaks wrote in an online post. “Today WikiLeaks is taking steps to ensure that Europeans can finally read the monster trade deal.”
A spokesman for the European Commission, which is negotiating with the US on behalf of the 28-country EU, pointed out that his institution has already published proposals related to the talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
“We don’t comment on this specific issue. But I will just remind you that the TTIP negotiations are the most transparent trade negotiations ever,” Daniel Rosario told dpa.
Proponents say TTIP will significantly boost economic growth and jobs, but critics worry that the deal will water down consumer protection provisions and allow corporations to block undesirable regulation.
“The secrecy of the TTIP casts a shadow on the future of European democracy,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. “Under this cover, special interests are running wild … The time for its secrecy to end is now.”
By early Tuesday afternoon, the campaign had raised almost 18,000 euros.
Donors included former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, according to WikiLeaks.
Varoufakis, who conducted testy bailout negotiations with eurozone partners during his time as finance minister, wrote on Twitter that “transparency needs a helping hand in the eurozone, but also in trade negotiations that affect it.”
Progress in the TTIP negotiations, which started in July 2013, has been slower than expected. EU leaders had called for the talks to wrap up by the end of this year, but some officials no longer expect this deadline to be met.
WikiLeaks became notorious for releasing government documents about electronic spying by the US National Security Agency.
It has also resorted to crowd-funding to raise 100,000 dollars as a bounty for anyone who provides unpublished chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), another trade deal being negotiated by the US with 11 other Pacific Rim countries.