After the leaks today showing just what it really stands for, this could be the end for TTIP

The documents show that US corporations will be granted unprecedented powers over any new public health or safety regulations to be introduced in future. If any European government does dare to bring in laws to raise social or environmental standards, TTIP will grant US investors the right to sue for loss of profits  


Today’s shock leak of the text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) marks the beginning of the end for the hated EU-US trade deal, and a key moment in the Brexit debate. The unelected negotiators have kept the talks going until now by means of a fanatical level of secrecy, with threats of criminal prosecution for anyone divulging the treaty’s contents.

Now, for the first time, the people of Europe can see for themselves what the European Commission has been doing under cover of darkness - and it is not pretty.

The leaked TTIP documents, published by Greenpeace this morning, run to 248 pages and cover 13 of the 17 chapters where the final agreement has begun to take shape. The texts include highly controversial subjects such as EU food safety standards, already known to be at risk from TTIP, as well as details of specific threats such as the US plan to end Europe’s ban on genetically modified foods.

The documents show that US corporations will be granted unprecedented powers over any new public health or safety regulations to be introduced in future. If any European government does dare to bring in laws to raise social or environmental standards, TTIP will grant US investors the right to sue for loss of profits in their own corporate court system that is unavailable to domestic firms, governments or anyone else.

For all those who said that we were scaremongering and that the EU would never allow this to happen, we were right and you were wrong.

The leaked texts also reveal how the European Commission is preparing to open up the European economy to unfair competition from giant US corporations, despite acknowledging the disastrous consequences this will bring to European producers, who have to meet far higher standards than pertain in the USA.

According to official statistics, at least one million jobs will be lost as a direct result of TTIP – and twice that many if the full deal is allowed to go through. Yet we can now see that EU negotiators are preparing to trade away whole sectors of our economies in TTIP, with no care for the human consequences.

The European Commission slapped a 30-year ban on public access to the TTIP negotiating texts at the beginning of the talks in 2013, in the full knowledge that they would not be able to survive the outcry if people were given sight of the deal. In response, campaigners called for a ‘Dracula strategy’ against the agreement: expose the vampire to sunlight and it will die. Today the door has been flung open and the first rays of sunlight shone on TTIP. The EU negotiators will never be able to crawl back into the shadows again.

The leak of the TTIP text comes at a time when senior politicians across Europe have already begun to distance themselves from the increasingly toxic deal. President Hollande announced this weekend that France will veto any TTIP agreement that could endanger the country’s agricultural sector. Germany’s economy minister Sigmar Gabriel has also spoken publicly of TTIP collapsing, and has pointed the finger at US intransigence as the cause. When politicians start playing the blame game in this way, you know they are already preparing their exit strategies. The writing is on the wall.

For those of us in the thick of the EU referendum debate, the contempt shown by the TTIP negotiators to the people of Europe is the most potent reminder of the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU institutions. Today’s leak of the TTIP text leaves the leaders of the European Union with a choice. Either they abandon the TTIP negotiations immediately or they risk seeing the entire European project come crashing down about their ears. They have until 23rd June to decide.


http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ttip-leaks-shocking-what-are-they-eu-us-deal-a7010121.html

THESE supposed "shock" discoveries shouldn't really surprise anyone who's been following the development of so-called "free trade"agreements over the past decade...

SINCE  the North America Free Trade Agreement was established only a few years ago, there has been been a rash of lawsuits from US corporations who have re-invented themselves as predatory companies attempting to sue the governments of other countries that they trade in..

SOME have gone as far as to set up dummy mining and manufacturing "companies" whose business model is to put an unworkable and unholy model on the table, and then sue the foreign government for "restraint of trade" when knocked back !

THE TRANS PACIFIC pact that US corporations are currently trying to put into place was sent back to the US gov't for revision a couple of times over this past year, after groups of AMERICAN medium and small business owners found that those corporations had structured their model in such a way, that they could sue their own fellow countrymen -- not only for getting in their way, but also for the simple act of having the temerity to complain about those corporations bullying the little guys !!!

MEANWHILE, DOWN here, where Australia is in the middle of forming a bilateral "free trade" agreement with China, there are provisions not signed yet, that would allow big multinationals from one country to virtually (if not literally..) march into the other, and proverbially fuck the local workforce up the arse, sack them, and replace them with cut-price imported 'Coolie' labour -- and if the Unions kick up a stink, skitch the police onto them..

WHILE the Abbott/Hockey regime would have loved to screw our workers over, the Turnbull replacement cabinet seems more wary of the provisions of that section of the "agreement" -- probably because the next Federal elections are only two months away.        

N.B.     CONSIDERING that it was that well known left-wing Greenpeace mob, often described as "communistic" and anti-progress by big business's hired mouthpieces, who have been the ones that shone the Democracy and Transparency spotlights on to this closeted and protected affront to both humanity and national sovereignty...

IT WOULD BE interesting to see if our regular Right Whinge Capitalism-defending  commentators on here, such as Tommy, nicko and Didge, could be prepared to give their views on those American multinational corporations planned unilateral assaults against Europe and its citizens, workers, communities, businesses and environment..

Wolfie, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!

PS why should I?

nicko wrote:

PS why should I?

IF those predatory US-based Corporations did get their wishes, those "free trade" agreements would eventually affect the way that all businesses operate in Europe and Britain, and how their workers are treated (and whether or not they even have jobs..).

YOU DO know people running their own businesses over there, don't you nicko ?
AND your children live and work there ?

"Free trade" issues will affect everyone over the long run..  
(AND you're normally in favour of Britain's self determination in most issues, aren't you ?)

Our powers and democracy have been stolen by the eu... and now they plan to had it over to American corporations...


We don't want the eu and we dont want ttip!!!



VOTE leave on June 23rd!!!



And I did actually post this story on the eu poll thread!

Wolfie, not on that one.