Anti-TTIP activists hijack EU's online public consultation

Brussels

EUROPEAN campaigners against an EU-US accord have held up progress towards the world's biggest free trade deal by deluging an online public consultation that European Union officials had hoped would help them unblock a key issue.

Of almost 150,000 submissions to the public forum on how to protect businesses from unfair government interference, over 95 per cent were from supporters of a small group of organisations hostile to a deal with Washington and who submitted identical or very similar responses, two EU officials have told Reuters.