Some photos from yesterdays protest against TTIP in Parliament Square

The Toxic TTIP

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon in a pub in North London, a public meeting is taking place. John Hilary, from the charity War on Want, is giving a talk about the threat posed by a clandestine treaty, currently being agreed between America and the European Union.

The ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’ is a treaty that seeks to demolish all restrictions on the profits of huge transnational companies, at the vast expense of those living in the countries involved.

If the treaty goes through, massive deregulation will occur, causing labour, food, and environmental standards to fall in order for corporations to maximize profit. Companies will be allowed to exercise almost complete disregard both for person and planet. All public sectors will be open to privatization and the NHS will be dismantled. Most worryingly of all, these changes will be irreversible, because the TTIP agreement allows for corporations to sue a country if a policy causes them to lose potential earnings. This compromises the democratic foundations of society. The government will become even more vulnerable to the manipulations of big business than it is today.

The part of TTIP that allows corporations to have such flagrant influence on government is a mechanism that goes by the forgettable acronym ISDS, or the ‘Investor-state Dispute System’. Other countries that have made similar agreements featuring this mechanism have been sued when they make democratic decisions. In the light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, Germany decided to phase out nuclear power. As a consequence, Vattenfall, a Swedish energy giant, had to close two of its nuclear power stations in Germany. Enabled by the Energy Charter Treaty, the Swedish energy company is now able to sue Germany for €3.7 billion, of which they are expected to receive at least €700 million in compensation. This dispute, as well as those brought about by the TTIP agreement, wont be settled in a domestic court by judges, but in private arbitration by corporate lawyers who have a vested interest in business. As this and other experiences should teach us, bi-lateral agreements like TTIP discourage q government from making progressive decisions that are in the interests of the population.

The European Commission’s argument for TTIP is that it will increase the GDP in the EU by half a percent over the next thirteen years. However, according to several independent respected investigators, these figures are vastly overstated. Moreover, by the European Commission’s own admission, TTIP will cause job losses in the UK, as companies will start to source workers in America, where there are fewer rights for the individual worker and no trade unions to keep wages up. It is reasonable to expect that following the implementation of TTIP, the rights of workers and the conditions under which they work will worsen dramatically as the EU and America compete with each other to have the lowest labour costs.

TTIP is not the first deal of its kind to be proposed in the UK, nor is it likely to be the last. Currently, a parallel agreement between Canada and the EU is at a more advanced stage than TTIP. In order to combat such damaging and undemocratic deals, positive legislation that protects the interests of the public needs to be put in place. However, before this can happen, awareness needs to be raised around the issue. This is gradually starting to happen. Although TTIP has mostly been negotiated so far in secret, two days ago, following public pressure, the European Commission released its negotiating mandate for the agreement. Such a small step towards transparency demonstrates that public opinion can have an effect. We can insist that TTIP and other deals of its sort are stopped. We can show politicians that TTIP is toxic.

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon in a pub in North London, a public meeting is taking place. John Hilary, from the charity War on Want, is giving a talk about the threat posed by a clandestine treaty, currently being agreed between America and the European Union.

The ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’ is a treaty that seeks to demolish all restrictions on the profits of huge transnational companies, at the vast expense of those living in the countries involved.

If the treaty goes through, massive deregulation will occur, causing labour, food, and environmental standards to fall in order for corporations to maximize profit. Companies will be allowed to exercise almost complete disregard both for person and planet. All public sectors will be open to privatization and the NHS will be dismantled. Most worryingly of all, these changes will be irreversible, because the TTIP agreement allows for corporations to sue a country if a policy causes them to lose potential earnings. This compromises the democratic foundations of society. The government will become even more vulnerable to the manipulations of big business than it is today.

The part of TTIP that allows corporations to have such flagrant influence on government is a mechanism that goes by the forgettable acronym ISDS, or the ‘Investor-state Dispute System’. Other countries that have made similar agreements featuring this mechanism have been sued when they make democratic decisions. In the light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, Germany decided to phase out nuclear power. As a consequence, Vattenfall, a Swedish energy giant, had to close two of its nuclear power stations in Germany. Enabled by the Energy Charter Treaty, the Swedish energy company is now able to sue Germany for €3.7 billion, of which they are expected to receive at least €700 million in compensation. This dispute, as well as those brought about by the TTIP agreement, wont be settled in a domestic court by judges, but in private arbitration by corporate lawyers who have a vested interest in business. As this and other experiences should teach us, bi-lateral agreements like TTIP discourage q government from making progressive decisions that are in the interests of the population.

The European Commission’s argument for TTIP is that it will increase the GDP in the EU by half a percent over the next thirteen years. However, according to several independent respected investigators, these figures are vastly overstated. Moreover, by the European Commission’s own admission, TTIP will cause job losses in the UK, as companies will start to source workers in America, where there are fewer rights for the individual worker and no trade unions to keep wages up. It is reasonable to expect that following the implementation of TTIP, the rights of workers and the conditions under which they work will worsen dramatically as the EU and America compete with each other to have the lowest labour costs.

TTIP is not the first deal of its kind to be proposed in the UK, nor is it likely to be the last. Currently, a parallel agreement between Canada and the EU is at a more advanced stage than TTIP. In order to combat such damaging and undemocratic deals, positive legislation that protects the interests of the public needs to be put in place. However, before this can happen, awareness needs to be raised around the issue. This is gradually starting to happen. Although TTIP has mostly been negotiated so far in secret, two days ago, following public pressure, the European Commission released its negotiating mandate for the agreement. Such a small step towards transparency demonstrates that public opinion can have an effect. We can insist that TTIP and other deals of its sort are stopped. We can show politicians that TTIP is toxic.