Understanding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: What went wrong?

From the very onset, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) suffered from a lack of acceptance in the general public of many European countries. This holds particularly true for Germany, whose government has been one of the strongest backers and whose economy is considered to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of such a treaty.

The initial survey on which the paper is based was designed to tackle issues of perception and understanding of the TTIP in the general public in Germany. Initial results led the author to consider setting up a broader perspective of how the general public perceives, understands, reacts to, and interacts with major complex political, social, and economic issues, for which the TTIP stands as a proxy. The hypothesis the author will address in the paper follows from this: whether the European Union (EU) and German government may have been ill-prepared in terms of communicating efficiently with the public, in comparison to interest groups that formed to oppose the signing and implementation of the treaty.

The qualitative online survey was conducted anonymously. The survey was set up in German, aiming to address respondents at least 18 years of age. The survey was made available via several German-speaking web-based channels in Germany. Topics addressed in the survey include general knowledge about and understanding of the issues related to the TTIP, perception and acceptance of the TTIP and its negotiation process, evaluation of the estimated importance and impact of an implemented TTIP for the participants and various interest groups, and lastly, a value-oriented assessment of the terminology people associate with the TTIP.

To allow for a differentiated analysis, the survey also required the provision of demographic data, including age, gender, nationality, household income, education level, size of agglomeration, professional occupation, nationality and geographic location of employer, etc.

The first findings brought about some expected and some unexpected results. Some results are remarkable in their spectrum and others have led the author to consider adjusting or realigning his perspective. Because of certain asymmetries in the perception of respondents towards the respective effects of the TTIP for Europe versus the United States, the author would like to set up a mirrored survey in the United States to test certain hypotheses pertaining to perception based more on attitudes than on knowledge or reflection.