Brussels, 16/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 15 July, a coalition of 48 NGOs originating from 18 EU member states submitted a European citizens' initiative (ECI) to the European Commission, aiming to stop the negotiations for the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the USA. The “Stop TTIP” initiative calls on the Commission to recommend the Council to withdraw the mandate it has been granted to negotiate the TTIP, and not to conclude the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) with Canada. The reason that the “Stop TTIP” ECI states for its demand is the deficit of democratic participation and the weakening of standards connected to the TTIP negotiation and to future agreements between the EU and North America. The German NGOs Attac, Campact, Friends of the Earth Germany, Mehr Demokratie, Environment Institute Munich, and Nature and Biodiversity Conservation are responsible for coordinating this ECI - in which Belgian NGO Maison du peuple d'Europe, Greenpeace Luxembourg, British NGOs 38 degree, War on Want, and Unison, and Spanish NGO Tierra (Friends of the Earth Spain) are also participating.
“The centre of our criticism is the democratic dimension of the planned agreement: rules which have far-reaching consequences for 500 million EU citizens in 28 member states are negotiated behind closed doors. This is what we oppose”, says Michael Efler, representative of the “Stop TTIP” ECI citizens' committee and spokesperson of the federal association Mehr Demokratie, in a press release. The German NGO targets two dangers in particular - firstly, the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in the TTIP (which would grant foreign investors important rights on investment protection in the face of states, and which would dissuade states from regulating on social, environmental, and health protection issues); and secondly; the TTIP plans as regards regulatory cooperation (aiming to set up an early warning system on draft laws or regulations linked to trade, which would enable stakeholders and lobbyists to express their interest even before the parliamentary process).
“The TTIP agreement (…) is about the common attempt of multinational companies on both sides of the Atlantic to break open markets at the expense of consumer protection, food safety, environmental provisions, valuable social standards, regulations on the use of toxins or regulations on bank safety”, says the NGO War on Want. “The precautionary principle, which is used in the EU, ensures stricter regulations regarding, for example, the approval of chemicals. Through the TTIP, however, a company could gain the right to register its product in the US and to place it on the European market afterwards. In US markets, the ex-post approach applies. This means that only when the harmfulness of a product has been explicitly proven, it is taken off the market. The obstacles for approval are therefore lower at the beginning”, the same British NGO states.
In the view of honorary president of Attac-France, Susan George, (an NGO which is also part of the “Stop TTIP” ECI) “TTIP is exceedingly dangerous because it has been prepared by transnational corporations for 20 years. These huge companies have shaped the content and become an official part of the TTIP process at the invitation of governments, to the exclusion of all other citizens.” “The treaty can be defeated as was the case for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), also negotiated in secret which was beaten in 1998 by a strong citizens' movement, partly because it contained the same exorbitant rights for corporations as the TTIP, such as the investor to state dispute system (ISDS) allowing them to sue governments in private tribunals for damages if they consider that a government decision would interfere with their present or even hoped-for future profits. The companies thus seek to privatise not only the judiciary, but also a substantial party of governments' legislative functions by taking over decisions on regulations and standards. They could even intimidate the executive branch with the threat of a barrage of lawsuits if it tried to improve laws concerning banks, labour, the environment, food safety health, etc”, George concludes.
Support from European Parliament's Greens. The Greens/EFA Group gave its backing to the “Stop TTIP” ECI immediately and announced that it will work proactively to ensure the ECI's success. “There is a growing sense of unease and concern among European citizens and civil society about the ongoing TTIP negotiations. This concern reflects the broad scope of the negotiations and their possible implications on European standards, and is reinforced by the opaque negotiation process”, stated Ska Keller (Germany) and Yannick Jadot (France) in a press release. (EH)