Brussels, 20/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Participants at a high-level conference on the future EU-US free trade deal (TTIP), organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU, the European Commission and the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday 17 November, called for greater transparency, better involvement of the social partners and detailed communication about the impact of TTIP, both good and bad.
“Only an agreement that has the broad support of the social partners and civil society will be a good and sustainable agreement” was the conference's bottom line, explains the EESC. Despite divergent viewpoints, the representatives of the social partners, including the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and BusinessEurope, agreed that TTIP provides an opportunity to shape globalisation in line with the EU's values.
“For me, a successful TTIP should be able to provide economic opportunities for small, medium-sized and large companies alike in both the US and Europe. It should secure jobs and stimulate job creation while at the same time guaranteeing workers' rights social protection and social standards worldwide. Therefore the stake is high and it is important to include social partners, not only during the negotiations, but also at the implementation of any future agreement. A social and sustainable agenda needs to be the basis of this agreement and we will not accept any lowering of our standards,' said the EESC president, Georges Dassis, in his opening speech.
The prime minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, said: “TTIP should not be signed at any price and it should be a global and high-quality agreement which does not endanger our social model”. He called for a TTIP that opens perspectives, creates jobs and respects European standards rather than a TTIP with imposed rules that sells the values for which we have fought for peanuts.
Piloting the TTIP talks on behalf of the EU, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström stressed the importance of the social partnership for the European economy. She said the benefits of TTIP were greater growth and prosperity for EU workers and companies, and gave assurances that the European side wanted to include the most advanced labour rights ever negotiated by the EU in a trade deal.
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, called for a constructive dialogue between promoters and opponents of TTIP: “We must go beyond tariff reduction and advance on, for example, investment protection, standards and market access (…) the social partners must be fully on board”.' Schulz called for globalisation to be shaped in a fair way, promoting European labour rights, which ensure a high level of protection, and sustainable development.
President of the EESC Employers' Group, Jacek Krawczyk reminded participants that the EESC, while facing lively and sometimes polarised discussions between the different groups, had overwhelmingly voted in favour of the TTIP negotiations. Krawczyk said “a robust sustainable development chapter, reiterating the obligations arising from ILO membership, is indispensable. The sustainable development chapter must include a proper civil society monitoring mechanism.”
The president of the EESC Workers' Group, Gabriele Bischoff, complained that the European Commission has so far mainly promoted TTIP for its potential for growth and investment. “'For workers, the key question is not only the number of jobs that will be created, but also the quality of these new jobs (...) We need to assess the TTIP's impact on SMEs and their employees accurately - on a sector-by-sector basis - and at the EU and member states' level. We must be able to assess benefits against risks and take the necessary measures to minimise the negative effects.”
The president of the Various Interests' Group, Luca Jahier, said: “The TTIP negotiations are the most transparent negotiations ever to have been undertaken by the EU”. He regretted, however, that relevant stakeholders, including the EESC, cannot advise the Commission in its negotiations because of the United States' refusal to allow wider access to the consolidated versions of the negotiation text. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)