Trade

TTIP has become notorious over recent years. From Brussels to Berlin, Warsaw to Barcelona, more people know what these four letters stand for today more than ever before.

MEP Sven Giegold looks back at 2015 and some of the key Green political fights on the European scene. He sheds light on what he thinks will be the 2016 key battlefields for the Greens and for Europe to survive nationalisms and populisms.

For Americans, much more so than for Europeans, security trumps freedom. The NSA is beyond the control of the President and of Congress; and the US, in the role of the benevolent protector, imposes its own ethical standards onto its allies in order to extract both economic profits and strategic political information. These differences between the US and Europe do not call into question the continued viability of NATO, but they do, however, negate both the desirability and the feasibility of forming a “Transatlantic Internal Market”.

TTIP and the other bilateral agreements of its kind are part of a political power struggle about influence and profits. But who are the players and the main winners in the distribution poker? A historical analysis demonstrates that, when transparency and reliable information are absent, citizens are usually the ones who lose out.

On November 1st the new European Commission took office in Brussels, a change in personnel that presents an opportunity for a shift in the EU’s approach to China.

Secretive changes to the London Court of International Arbitration will make the current EU-US Trade Deal even more damaging for democracy. This makes it even more urgent that citizens in the UK and across Europe oppose such a worrying trade deal and the Investor-State Dispute Settlement that goes with it. This trade deal will turn Europe into a real-life game of Monopoly – where the rich can snap up anything they want.

Considering the current attitude of the Turkish government which regards regulations as hurdles reducing economic growth, the recent Soma mining accident should not have come as a surprise. From both economic and ecological points of view, the Turkish economic growth trajectory is not sustainable and should be changed.

The Global South could be a potential loser in the negotiations over an EU-US Free Trade Agreement. The fairer alternative is to return to the post-war idea of multilateral negotiations that involve civil society and provide a fair deal for all.

Negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (the EU-US Free Trade Agreement) have the potential to undermine environmental, social and labour rights. As Greens, we must work to make the process more transparent and fight any attempt to lower standards.

Following President Obama’s State of the Union, negotiations will shortly commence on the will be known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and US. Some claim such a deal will create 2 million jobs, but reaching agreement will be difficult and to succeed the EU needs to identify what its priorities are.