According to leaked TTIP negotiation documents, the European Commission sought input by major oil and gas companies, including BP, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, for energy chapters of TTIP back in 2013. The EU has long fought for renewed oil and gas exports from the US to Europe – which has been banned for some 40 years. TTIP is seen as a possible breaking point. In this context, the EC and the business alliances see the contacts between ExxonMobil and the EC as completely normal. EC officials say that the oil company´s representatives were merely consulted, as are many environmental groups and the civil society in general. On the other hand, some campaigners, joined by the Greens´ MEP Ska Keller, see it as an unprecedented complicity of the EC with fossil fuels companies. They point out that sensitive negotiating strategies were discussed with an oil giant, but were not revealed to the public. This leak proves to them that TTIP would endanger the EU´s drive towards green energy and its tough environmental standards – a point dismissed by the EC as totally nonsensical.

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