While
we are all going about our daily business this month, big business is
going about trying to make sure that Europe is run purely in its
interest.
If
agreed to by the European parliament, the new Free Trade Agreement
between the United States and the European Union, better known as TTIP,
will do immeasurable damage to the lives of citizens across this
continent.
The progressive organisation Global Justice believes that it
poses "great risks to hard won measures to protect public health, worker
rights and the environment."
Essentially,
TTIP is "designed to take away barriers which are behind the customs
border – such as differences in regulations, standards and
certifications" of goods for trade.
This may sound reasonable but what
it means is that Europe would be required by law to have exactly the
same product rules as the United States, which are widely known to be
the loosest and most anti-consumer protection in the developed world.
The
TTIP negotiations have all been conducted in secret sessions - closed
to the public and the media.
The reason for this is simple.
The leaks of
information from the meetings have shown that TTIP would mean that any
business could take any government to court if they believed that a
government policy threatens their profits.
This legal method, (known as
the Investor
State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism) has already led to countries
being sued for putting health warnings on cigarette packets, regulating
medicine and energy prices, raising minimum wages, and removing tax
incentives.
TTIP
would further strengthen the power of big business (because only the
largest can afford it) to control what national parliaments can and
cannot do for their private citizens.
Fracking, to take just one other
example, would be more likely to go ahead because public administrators
would want to avoid costly litigation that they are likely to lose
defending a decision against it.
On top of all this, there
is a fear – from the European Commission itself – that because of TTIP
changes up to one million workers employed in small businesses are
almost certain to lose their jobs.
So, if accepted, TTIP may well worsen
inequality across the EU.
Meanwhile,
according to online global web campaigners Avaaz, “cruel factory farms
are pumping healthy animals full of antibiotics so that they can produce
more meat, faster and cheaper.”
They argue that this practise is also
creating drug-resistant superbugs but, in a positive development,
several European countries have already drastically cut the use of
antibiotics, and
now EU ministers are negotiating laws to do so across the wider region.
Unsurprisingly, and in a parallel move with pressure on TTIP, “the farm
and pharma lobby is out in full force to stop the new EU laws.”
I
would urge readers to think about taking action by signing the online
petitions (as I have done) at the websites of the two organizations I’ve
mentioned above in this article: Global Justice and Avaaz.
[This
article was first published in Catalonia
Today magazine, June 2015.]
