{"id":34698,"date":"2013-10-07T12:05:35","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T11:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=34698"},"modified":"2015-05-06T08:58:57","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T07:58:57","slug":"transatlantic-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-power-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/10\/transatlantic-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-power-grab\/","title":{"rendered":"Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement: A Corporate Power Grab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fta-NO-es\"<\/a>The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the\u00a0US\u00a0and EU intends\u00a0to create the world’s largest free trade area, ‘protect’ investment and remove \u2018unnecessary regulatory barriers\u2019. Corporate interests are driving the agenda, with the public having been sidelined. Unaccountable, pro-free-trade bureaucrats from both sides of the\u00a0Atlantic\u00a0are facilitating the strategy (1)<\/p>\n

In addition to the biotech sector and Big Pharma, groups lobbying for the deal have included\u00a0Toyota,\u00a0General Motors,\u00a0IBM\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0powerful lobby group the\u00a0Chamber of Commerce of the US. Business\u00a0Europe, the main organisation representing employers in\u00a0Europe, launched its own\u00a0strategy\u00a0on an EU-US economic and trade partnership in early 2012. Its suggestions were widely included in the draft EU mandate.<\/p>\n

An increasing number of politicians and citizens groups have criticised the secretive negotiations and are demanding that they be conducted in an open way. This is growing concern that the negotiations could result in the\u00a0opening of the floodgates for GMOs and shale gas (fracking) in\u00a0Europe, the threatening of digital and labour rights or the empowering of corporations to legally challenge a wide range of regulations which they dislike.<\/p>\n

One of the key aspects of the negotiations is that both the EU and US should recognise their respective rules and regulations, which in practice could reduce regulation to the lowest common denominator. The official language talks of \u2018mutual recognition\u2019 of standards or so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. For the EU, that could mean accepting US standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower than the EU’s.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0US\u00a0wants all so-called barriers to trade, including controversial regulations such as those protecting agriculture, food or data privacy, to be removed. Even the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, in a\u00a0letter\u00a0to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, made it clear that any agreement must reduce EU restrictions on genetically modified crops, chlorinated chickens and hormone-treated beef.<\/p>\n

The public in\u00a0Europe\u00a0does not want such things. People want powerful corporations to be held to account and their pratices regulated by elected representatives who they trust to protect their interests, the public good. However, the TAFTA seems an ideal opportunity for corporations to force wholly unpopular and dangerous policies through via secretive, undemocratic means. They have been unable to do this in a democratic and transparent manner, so secret back room deals represent a different option.<\/p>\n

Corporate demands include an \u201cambitious liberalisation of agricultural trade barriers with as few exceptions as possible.\u201d Food lobby group\u00a0Food and Drink Europe, representing the largest food companies (Unilever, Kraft, Nestl\u00e9, etc.),\u00a0has\u00a0welcomed the negotiations, with one of their key demands being the facilitation of the low level presence of unapproved genetically modified crops. This is a long-standing industry agenda also supported by feed and grain trading giants, including Cargill, Bunge, ADM and the big farmers’ lobby COPA-COGECA. Meanwhile, the biotech industry on both sides of the\u00a0Atlantic\u00a0is offering<\/a>\u00a0its\u00a0\u201csupport and assistance as the EU and the\u00a0US\u00a0government look to enhance their trade relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Report<\/b><\/p>\n

If the pro-free-market bureaucrats and corporations get their way and successfully bar the public from any kind of meaningful information input into the world\u2019s biggest trade deal ever to be negotiated, Europeans could end up becoming the victims of one of the biggest corporate stitch ups ever. Left unchallenged, it will allow huge private interests to dig their profiteering snouts into the trough of corporate greed at the expense of ordinary people.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not hyperbole. Such a view is confirmed by the release of a new report on the eve of the second round of negotiations that are due to begin in\u00a0Brussels\u00a0next week.<\/p>\n

The report, published by the\u00a0Seattle\u00a0to Brussels Network (S2B) (2), reveals the true human and environmental costs of the proposed TAFTA. \u2018A Brave New Transatlantic Partnership\u2019\u00a0<\/i>highlights how the European Commission\u2019s promises of up to 1% GDP growth and massive job creation through the EU-US trade deal are not supported even by its own studies, which predict a growth rate of just 0.01% GDP over the next ten years and the potential loss of jobs in several economic sectors, including agriculture.<\/p>\n

The report also explains how corporations are lobbying EU-US trade negotiators to use the deal to weaken food safety, labour, health and environmental standards as well as undermine digital rights. Attempts to strengthen banking regulation in the face of the financial crisis could also be jeopardised as the financial lobby uses the secretive trade negotiations to undo financial reforms, such as restrictions on the total value of financial transactions or the legal form of its operations.<\/p>\n

Kim Bizzarri, the author of the report:<\/p>\n

\u201cBig business lobbies on both sides of the Atlantic view the secretive trade negotiations as a weapon for getting rid of policies aimed at protecting European and US consumers, workers and our planet. If their corporate wish-list is implemented, it will concentrate even more economic and political power within the hands of a small elite, leaving all of us without protection from corporate wrongdoings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also warns that the agreement could open the floodgate to multi-million Euro lawsuits from corporations who can challenge democratic policies at international tribunals if they interfere with their profits.<\/p>\n

Pia Eberhardt, trade campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory and author of \u2018A transatlantic corporate bill of rights\u2019:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proposed investor rights in the transatlantic trade deal show what it is really about: It\u2019s a power grab from corporations to rein in democracy and handcuff governments that seek to regulate in the public interest. It\u2019s only a matter of time before European citizens start paying the price in higher taxes and diminished social protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consumer watchdogs, digital rights and trade activists, environmentalists and trade unions are preparing to fight the corporate dystopia put forward in the EU-US trade deal.<\/p>\n

Luis Rico of Ecologistas en Acci\u00f3n, a member of the Seattle to Brussels network:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that the disturbing evidence we provide will show why all concerned citizens and parliamentarians on both sides of the Atlantic need to urgently mobilise against the proposed EU-US trade deal. We have to derail this corporate power grab that threatens to worsen the livelihood of the millions of people already seriously affected by the financial crisis and by the crippling consequences of Europe’s austerity reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do we want increasingly bad and unhealthy food, our rights at work being further eroded, the environment being damaged in the chase for profit, ever greater reckless gambling in the financial sector or our elected representatives being by-passed via international tribunals? Of course we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Where is the democracy surrounding this proposed TAFTA? Where is ordinary people\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0protection from the \u2018free\u2019 market corporate-financial cabals that ultimately drive global economic policy and geo-political strategies? By translating corporate power into political influence at the G8, G20, WTO, NATO or elsewhere, whether it is by war, threats, debts or coercion, secretive and undemocratic free trade agreements are but one tool that very powerful corporations use in an attempt to cast the world in their own image (3,4).<\/p>\n

The TAFTA is little more than an attempt at a corporate power grab masquerading as something that promotes growth, freedom, harmony and job creation. Those claims are bogus. It must be stopped<\/p>\n

Notes<\/b><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/us-eu-free-trade-agreement-a-corporate-stitch-up-by-any-other-name\/5339789<\/a><\/p>\n

2) \u00a0The\u00a0Seattle to Brussels Network<\/a>\u00a0(S2B) includes development, environmental, human rights, women and farmers organisations, trade unions and social movements working together for a truly sustainable, just and democratic trade policy in Europe. Corporate Europe Observatory is one of its members.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/the-great-eu-india-corporate-heist-uncovering-the-free-trade-agenda\/5342267<\/a><\/p>\n

4)\u00a0http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/the-eu-india-free-trade-agreement-corporate-driven-neocolonial-plunder\/5338049<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 colintodhunter.pt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the US and EU intends to create the world’s largest free trade area, ‘protect’ investment and remove \u2018unnecessary regulatory barriers\u2019. Corporate interests are driving the agenda, with the public having been sidelined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}