Online protest delays EU plan to resolve U.S. trade row

By Robin Emmott and Philip Blenkinsop

European campaigners against an EU-U.S. accord have held up progress towards the world’s biggest free trade deal by deluging an online public consultation that EU 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 percent 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.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.