Keith Taylor MEP: Toxic trade deal unravelling

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for the South East, has cautiously welcomed the news that a summit of EU leaders in Brussels has ended without any sign of a breakthrough on the controversial EU-Canada trade deal (CETA).

Taylor, who sits on the European Parliament's Environment Committee and is a staunch opponent of CETA and its well-known cousin TTIP, said:

Today's failure to agree a deal on CETA at the second time of asking this week is cause for celebration; the toxic trade deal is unravelling. But the deal isn't dead yet. Greens will stand with citizens across Europe until this controversial accord is defeated.

Put simply; CETA is a bad deal for the people of Britain, Europe, and even Canada, but a great deal for multinational corporations keen to escape the democratic oversight of national parliaments. It is little wonder that citizens across Europe and in North America are the loudest and more determined opponents of this toxic trade deal.  

'We ordinary people should not be the slaves of puppet governments that work for the benefit of the multinational.' So came the rallying cry of one citizen outside the European Parliament yesterday. Inside, decision makers were busy trying to find a way to resurrect the lame duck accord.

The deal, and particularly the 'Investment Court System' clause within it, poses a fundamental democratic question: do we want national parliaments to retain the power to legislate on behalf of their citizens or do we want to surrender that power to help boost the profit margins of multinational corporations? As a Green, the answer is clear; which is why I will continue working to halt this corporate power grab.

That Theresa May and her Ministers are still vehemently supporting the deal and pushing for it to be signed before Britain leaves the European Union is doubly concerning. It signals a desire to ensure Britain remains bound by the deal even after departing from the EU. It also sets a worrying precedent for the kinds of toxic trade deals desperate Ministers, supposed to be acting on behalf of the British people, will sign once the UK is outside of the EU.
 

Green MEP raises alarm about UK ‘joining front of the queue on dodgy trade deals’

Deals beyond TTIP

A Green MEP, who has long campaigned against the controversial TTIP trade deal between the EU and US, has warned that with the deal looking increasingly fragile, the UK may seek to enter into its own even more damaging agreement with the US. TTIP was cited by some on the Left as a good reason to leave the EU, but it now looks likely that Germany’s coalition government will veto the deal.

Molly Scott Cato, the Green MEP for the South West, argued before the referendum that the EU was the right place to fight TTIP and that the Tories would readily create alternative trade deals with the US and other nations if we left. She said:

I always said that a UK outside the EU, governed by the Tories, would lead to even further trade liberalisation, even more damaging trade deals and a deregulated corporate free-for-all. That is exactly what we are now in danger of witnessing. Obama famously said that were Britain to leave the EU it would go to the ‘back of the queue' on trade deals. With TTIP in free fall, the post Brexit reality is that Tory minsters are desperately trying to move us to the front of the queue. There is now a real danger this will result in a race to the bottom on workers’ rights, consumer protection and environmental and animal welfare standards.

Molly Scott Cato is also keen to highlight the huge costs involved in negotiating trade deals. The costs of TTIP to date amount to over €2.5 million. The figures were unearthed following a question she put to the EU Commission about the costs of the TTIP negotiations. She said:

We should not be under any illusion that leaving the negotiation processes of the EU will save us money. Any trade negotiations with the US or any other nation will be less efficient than 28 nations sharing the costs and will be a huge drain on the public purse.

TTIP: The Death of Democracy

As the EU Referendum debate gets under way and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership) begins to get some mentions it is worth watching this video in which David Malone reveals the inner workings of TTIP and its repercussions for democracy.

It is a long video, recorded a year ago, but I think deserves wider viewing.

TTIP: 'A box of tricks for corporate climate criminals'

A new briefing in English by AITEC and CEO explains why TTIP, and especially regulatory cooperation, could put a stranglehold on our ability to create the energy transition required to tackle climate change.

The new briefing gives examples of how regulatory cooperation in TTIP will enable big polluters to keep polluting and will help corporations tangle up regulations they dislike.

Regulatory cooperation could be the weapon to kill legislation to make investment in coal more expensive or to kill regulations to ramp up the energy efficiency of electrical appliances.

TTIP is thus a threat to climate justice.

Green's Lucas and Jones take opposing positions on EU Referendum

It was announced yesterday that Green MP Caroline Lucas is joining the board of the EU 'In' campaign. This came shortly after it was reported on Friday that  Green peer and retiring London Assembly member Jenny Jones was supporting the 'Leave' campaign.  Jones' position is not new as she wrote an article on the case for withdrawal back in July LINK

The Green Party's current official position is the 'Three Yeses' : Yes to a referendum, yes to reform, yes to staying in the EU with more detail in an Emergency Motion passed at Autumn Conference (added at end of article). The crux of the matter for some Green Party members is whether a failure to reform (or a worsening of the social benefits after Cameron's negotiations) should convert into a 'No to the EU'.  The treatment of Greece, TTIP and perceived failures over the refugee issue are key elements in the current debate.

As with the last EU referendum and the Scottish referendum people on either side of the debate can find themselves with some strange bedfellows - agreeing the ultimate aim of staying in or withdrawal but for very different reasons.

This is an extract from Jones' article in the Ecologist:

A pro-TTIP European Union, eager to impose the imperatives of capital against people, determined to evacuate democracy in Greece and other member states of its meaning, is not an EU we should wish to be part of.

Just in case you hadn't noticed: something is rotten in the state of Europe.

The EU is becoming a dictatorial imposer of austerity and deregulation, uncaring about its impacts on the wellbeing of people and planet, and determined to derail any elected government that dares dissent from its neoliberal ideology.

I write as a Green who has stood for the European Parliament on a mission of EU reform. I acknowledge that the EU can be and has been a powerful force for good - for example, in keeping the peace among member states, and in its impressive role in social and environmental regulation - now tragically at risk from the drive to 'deregulate'.

But I believe that the general support of the EU by the Green Party, and the Left, and bien-pensant intellectuals, and 'progressives', needs to come to an end, to be replaced by a more honest willingness to face up to the very serious flaws besetting the EU.

The two key events of the last few days that have made starkly clear that something is rotten at the top of our continent are first, the EU moving a big step closer to backing TTIP, the starkly anti-democratic and pro-corporatocratic 'TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership'.

And second, last night's imposition on Athens of a programme for privatisation and savage cuts even worse than that rejected by the Greek people in the referendum last week onto Greece with its decisive 'NO' vote.

Secret corporate lobbying over the heads of the people

The TTIP is the EU-US 'free trade' agreement currently being negotiated, to which the European Parliament, tragically, gave its provisional approval last week.

The Green Party is united against TTIP. And the Green Party argues strongly in favour of the EU. Is there any tension between these two facts? We think that there is. The TTIP

• enables the democratic will of the people to be struck down by big business;
• is in its very essence a project of secretive lobbying;
• is about gigantic corporations being able to break open and gobble up public procurement and public services.

My case is simple: this should not be viewed as some kind of aberration from EU standard practice. It is EU standard practice.

The EU has been from the beginning (but also increasingly, the key examples here being the Lisbon Treaty and the 'Stability and Growth pact') a pro-business front, a vehicle for organisations such as the European Roundtable of Industrialists to get their way.

There is far too little democracy in the EU: for example, the Council of Ministers operates almost entirely in secrecy and holds the whip hand over the Parliament on most issues; Brussels is dominated by corporate lobbyists who outnumber NGO lobbyists by about 15:1, while wielding immense powers of hospitality and patronage. EU rules would make it very difficult for (e.g.) the railways to be brought back into full public ownership in this country.

It is an illusion to think that TTIP is anything other than a natural extension of the logic of the EU as it is currently. Greens, being serious about our outright opposition to TTIP, need to be serious also about radically reforming the EU.

Anything less than truly radical reform - democratisation, an end to the culture of lobbying and secrecy, prioritisation of public service over private profit, prioritisation of one-planet ecological sanity over business profit - would leave the EU more of a hindrance than a help to Green objectives.

Greece - you call this 'negotiation'?

The imposition on Greece of harsh and unwanted measures that eliminate its sovereignty and strip the people of the democratic power they exercised last week in the referendum is not a departure from business as usual for the EU.

It is, on the contrary, a manifestation of the EU's long-standing disrespect for democracy and the sovereignty of its member states, and the determination among EU elites to impose a business-friendly vision onto any recalcitrant government and people.

This deal forced onto Athens - on pain of a forced crash out of the Euro - is a massive wake-up call to democrats everywhere. It is increasingly clear that the EU, far from standing up for Europe's people against overweening corporate power, are doing the exact opposite: ganging up with corporate and finance capital to suppress democracy and popular aspirations.

Above all, the huge power of business lobbyists in the EU - who can usually get what they want, unless the European public puts its foot down (as happened, thankfully, over ACTA -  but that is a very rare event) - simply must end.

Moreover, systemic problems are caused by the 'four freedoms' that are at the core of the Treaty of Rome: the freedom to move capital, products, services and labour all over the EU. The four freedoms add up to a 'bosses charter' giving capital one great supranational freedom - that to exploit labour anywhere in Europe on the most favourable possible terms. There is no Leftist case for an unreformed EU.

That referendum - in or out?

There are tremendous structural difficulties in the way of reforming the EU to address these problems and recreate it in a Green image. But unless they can be achieved we may have to support withdrawal in the UK's 'in or out' EU referendum.

Just as Syriza's negotiating position has been fatally undermined by its refusal (in my view deeply mistaken) to countenance leaving the Euro, so we - Green and progressive voters - will lack any leverage so long as we tolerate a bad EU, for fear of something even worse.

Meanwhile we have to contend with David Cameron's own campaign to 'reform' the EU, backed by other right-wing governments like Poland's: for them, the EU's main problem is that it is not pro-business enough, and imposes intolerable shackles on the pursuit of corporate profit as a result of its social and environmental legislation.

Leave the reform agenda to Cameron and friends, and the EU will only become an even more anti-democratic, anti-ecological, pro-growth, pro-big business centralising organisation than it already is. We must be forceful in opposing and denouncing that dystopian vision of a corporate Europe.

And make no mistake: a pro-TTIP European Union, eager to impose the imperatives of capital against people, determined to evacuate democracy in Greece and other member states of its meaning, is not an EU we should wish to be part of.

As if to underline the point about strange bedfellows despite Jones' stricture on the 'pro business front' the  'Vote Leave' campaign she is supporting is also supported by 'Business for Britain' , former Chairman of Dixons Lord Kalms, former Channel 4 Chairman Luke Johnson and millionaire donors to the Conservatives, Labour and UKIP LINK

Caroline Lucas made the case for staying in the EU strongly at the recent Green Party conference and released the following statement yesterday on her website about her decision to join the board of the 'In' Campaign:

I’ve joined the board of the ‘In’ campaign because I believe we are stronger when we work across borders on the challenges we face.

In particular I want to give young people a reason to engage with a referendum that will shape their futures, both in terms of protecting our shared environment and our basic rights, and by helping define the kind of country we want to be. 

Britain in the EU is open and forward looking. It's about our identity: confident, vibrant, inquiring, open minded. A community that welcomes opportunity, celebrates diversity and is passionate about the power of collective action."

Though I don’t see eye to eye with every member on the board on every issue we all share a commitment to Britain remaining in the EU. I will make a truly progressive case for a more democratic and accountable European Union. 

A different kind of EU is possible: one where power is held locally whenever it can be, where citizens have a real say in decisions made in Brussels and where corporate lobbyists are banished from the halls of power.

This referendum campaign is a chance to reimagine what democracy looks like, reshape what having a say really means and reinvigorate our politics. 

I look forward to working with people across the political spectrum and across our communities to make a positive case for our continued membership of the European Union.

As the debate develops inside the Green Party and on the left it is clear that the issue of the party's position may need to be revisited at the 2016 Spring Conference.  The Emergency Motion called for a 'run a distinct Green campaign in favour of the EU in addition to cross-party campaigning.' Whatever positions leading members take on the EU it is the members who eventually decide. There may well be arguments put forward that a vote at conference is not enough as people's attendance is limited, by both time and money, and that a vote of the whole membership is needed. There is also a difficulty that the Green Party has a two year limit on discussion of motions that have been passed or lost at Conference if the new motion reverses principles of the original. A motion modifying the Green Party's position could be ruled out of order on that basis so would need to be subtly worded.

Watch this space. 

AUTUMN 2015 EMERGENCY MOTION TEXT

-->

Emergency motion on Green EU campaign

Conference notes:

·      That the Queen's Speech in May announced that a Referendum will take place by the end of 2017.

·      That the EU Referendum Bill is currently being debated in Parliament.

·      The Green Party has a long standing policy of wanting a referendum on EU membership, remaining in the EU, and pushing for major reforms.

·      The European Union is in urgent need of reform to make it more democratic, sustainable and accountable.  

·      The Green Party is an internationalist party. We believe in working across borders to solve the shared challenges we face.

·      The recent members survey stated that 78% of members consider the UK’s membership of the EU ‘a good thing’ while only 6% think it ‘a bad thing’.

·      That Green MEPS use their position in the European Parliament to make EU institutions more democratic and accountable – and to vote against damaging policies which harm workers and the environment.

·      That the Green Party has been at the forefront of the fight against damaging free trade deals – including TTIP.

Conference instructs:

·      The Green Party to run a distinct Green campaign in favour of the EU in addition to cross-party campaigning. The Green campaign should highlight our support for an EU which, among other things, helps protect workers’ rights, tackles climate change and promotes peace.

·      GPEX and elected representatives to use the referendum campaign to highlight the major reforms we need to the EU, and to bring about a better understanding and engagement among members of the public of how the EU works and how they can influence it, including through the election of MEPs

·      GPEX and elected representatives to work together with Green Parties in other EU countries and other partners to build the campaign for real reform in the EU both during the referendum campaign and after.

·      GPEX and elected representatives to look at forming campaigning partnerships with grassroots organisations, like-minded politicians and others.

 

European Parliament TTIP vote cancelled because of huge public pressure say Green MEPs

In unusual circumstances, the planned vote in the European Parliament on TTIP tomorrow (The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) – an EU-US trade deal currently being negotiated, has been cancelled.

The official line from the Parliament is that because more than 200 amendments were tabled the vote should be postponed to enable the Trade Committee to consider the amendments before tabling them for a future plenary session.

The controversial deal seeks to remove standards and protections that are currently enshrined in laws across the EU and US. Examples of these regulations include labour rights that protect people at work, environmental regulations and food safety laws.

Included in the agreement is a clause called the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which many MEPs have warned would allow corporations to sue Governments in secret courts if a Government passed laws which limited a corporation’s profits or activity. 

More than 2 million EU citizens have signed a petition against the deal.

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England, said:

The decision to cancel the vote on TTIP stinks of political parties in the European Parliament running scared of the huge public opposition to TTIP.

TTIP represents a monumental power grab by corporations and it must be stopped in its tracks.

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England said:

This attempt to remove the right of all MEPs to vote on this very important report on TTIP is nothing short of a scandal. Thousands of constituents have emailed me today and I will not be cheated of my right to represent their will to oppose ISDS and the undermining of European protection of environments and animal welfare.

Bob Blackman's record on environmental issues under scrutiny

Bob Blackman, former MP for Harrow East (he is now just a candidate) had his record put under scrutiny publicly last week  near St Anne's Shopping Centre, Harrow on the Hill, when a constituent erected a board displaying his responses to her letters on various environmental issues as well as the Robin Hood tax and TTIP.

It was a novel way to inform voters of his complacency in the face of residents' concerns.

Bob Blackman is a former leader of Brent Conservatives.

TTIP: the threat to local authorities and public services

As the perils of TTIP are still not widely known and only a few organisations. including the Barnet Alliance and the Green Party seem to be ringing the alarm bells, I am reposting this long piece first published on the Barnet Alliance website LINK.

The EU and the US have been negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreement since July 2013. The consequences of this treaty could have a profound effect on EU member states at regional and local levels.TTIP would affect many sectors which are the responsibilities of local and regional authorities.

 The broad scope and myriad responsibilities of German Federal States, regional governments and local authorities across the EU would have justified involving them in the decision-making process as stakeholders. However, this has not happened. Representatives of regional and local governments as well as the public are puzzling over the content, the scope and the possible consequences of this treaty. It is therefore the aim of this short briefing to shine a light on possible consequences of this treaty for local and regional government. However, as negotiations are still ongoing, and owing to the restricted access to documentation, we can only present a rough estimation as to what TTIP will entail.

TTIP will have a profound effect on many areas under the remit of regional and local authorities and is examined in more detail here under in order to allow for a realistic assessment of risks. The source for this analysis are a series of leaked documents such as the text of the negotiating mandate of the EU Commission and drafts texts of various chapters and appendices.

As TTIP negotiations cover a very broad spectrum of topics, only those which are of relevance to local and regional authorities are considered for this briefing:

They include the planned Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) of arbitration, and issues relating to the status of public services, grants, subsidies and public tendering.

The Effects of TTIP on Local and Regional Governments.

by Thomas Fritz

Translation by Phil Fletcher

Arbitration tribunals: Local authorities and international courts.

When the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009, the European Commission was given the exclusive authority over direct foreign investments. This allows it to include into trade agreements far reaching provisions for investor protection, provisions which had already been included in a multitude of bilateral treaties. The mandate to negotiate on TTIP, which the European Council granted the European Commission, also provides for investor protection including ISDS, albeit on condition of an overall “satisfactory” result of the negotiations for the EU.

Natalie Bennett: 'TTIP is a huge threat'

 John Hilary of War on Want explains TTIP at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation

As the General Election nears more people are asking about TTIP when we are leafleting although it is still shrouded in mystery for many. John Hilary of War on Want  tries to explain the issues in 10 minutes in the video above.

Speaking at the Green Party’s Spring Conference, Natalie Bennett attacked the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its supporters for promoting a corporate agenda over the rights and interests of EU citizens. 

The controversial proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and United States, which could be agreed by the end of the year, aims to gradually remove all regulatory differences between the US and the EU. The European Commission has called it “the biggest trade deal in the world”. Yet many people are not aware of the proposals and the secretive decision making process behind them has been criticised as being wholly undemocratic. 

Bennett said:

“TTIP is a huge threat to hard-fought-standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy and our privacy and risks undoing decades worth of EU progress on issues like worker’s rights.”

Bennett stated that the proposed deal threatened to “blow apart the power of our democratic decision making.” She raised the spectre of the Edward Snowden revelations to demonstrate that the US state was “profoundly untrustworthy”.

This is Natalie's full speech

It’s not surprising, really, when we hear Lib Dems trumpeting the proposed US-EU free trade deal as some kind of economic saviour. The Lib Dems are the lapdogs of corporate Europe, while the Tories are its war horses. In their support for the trade deal, the Lib Dems are reiterating the propaganda of multinational companies interested only in swallowing up new markets, consuming new societies whole. 

Let’s make no mistake, the proposed free trade deal is a huge threat to hard-fought-for standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy, workers’ rights and our privacy. One of the great contributions of the EU is to set a foundation of these standards – not good enough, not high enough – but a start. The proposed free trade deal is a supertanker of dynamite that would blow those foundations apart.

And more, it would blow apart the power of our democratic decision making. The deal provides corporations with new rights to sue the Government for legislating in the public interest – that’s definitely not acting for the common good. 

The banking lobby is so happy with the financial services proposals it has said that the text could have come straight from its own brochure – that’s acting in the interests of the 1%, not the common good.

And there’s more. It’s a deal being proposed with a state that the bravery of Edward Snowden demonstrated is profoundly untrustworthy. Yet there’s no openness – no democracy – about the negotiations: the mandate that the EU Council gave to the Commission is still classified as ‘secret’.

A Global Day of Action Against TTIP is being planned for April 18th. LINK

Guest blog: Left Unity and the Green Party - time to talk?

 Sean Thompson is a former member of the Green Party and Green Left, who left the Green Party to join Left Unity. Ahead of LU's November Conference he has written an article about the organisation's relationship with the Green Party.

He has given me permission to publish this as a Guest Blog. I do this to encourage debate. I do not endorse everything he says but I do think he raises some important issues for both Left Unity and the Green Party.



Two resolutions to our national conference in November mention the Green Party; one calls for ‘structured collaboration… between serious forces on the left at the 2015 election, including the Green Party’, while the other states that
‘we will not call for a vote for… the middle class Greens’

Clearly, we need to get our act together and decide on the sort of relationship we want to develop with the Green Party. In my view, it is essential that we not only have a realistic understanding of the party’s politics and its support base, but that we develop a positive (but critical) working relationship with them wherever we can.

It’s only a bit more than eighteen months since our Ken, appearing on BBC’s Question Time, said that what Britain needed was a ‘UKIP of the Left’ and so kick-started the initiative that was to become Left Unity a few months later. However, since May it has started to look more and more as if it is the Green Party which is beginning to match that description. Membership of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) is booming: it now stands at around 23,000 – a near 60% increase since the beginning of this year. Membership of the Young Greens (party members under 30 or full time students) has more than doubled over the same period and now stands at over 8,000. In the week since the TV companies announced that UKIP would be invited to take part in the election debates between the party leaders next May but that the Greens would not be, the party received an incredible 2,000 membership applications and in five days an online petition demanding its inclusion in the debates received over 185,000 signatures. Given our very modest size and limited visibility and the utter irrelevance of all the old far left sects and (except for a couple of areas) TUSC, the Green Party is increasingly being seen as the only alternative to the left of Labour.

The City of London and TTIP - meeting Saturday Oct 25th

NW London GMB backs TTIP fight ahead of Saturday's Day of Action

The campaign organisation 38 Degrees LINK is holding a Day of Action on TTIP (Transatlantic  Trade and Investment Partnership) on Saturday August 30th. (More information below) There is more about TTIP and video of a public meeting on the issue on the excellent Haringey Green party website. LINK

Here in North West London the GMB has called for a campaign of opposition in a motion passed last month:

This North West London GMB branch notes with alarm that an EU/US Transatlantic trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is being negotiated by the EU Commission on behalf of the EU member states  - and due to be partly completed by December 2014.

TTIP, if signed, will give multinational companies the right to sue governments over regulations that the companies object to - under 'investtor-state-dispute-settlement' (ISDS) rules - outside and above the courts and parliaments of the EU member states.

TTIP focuses on removing the regulations covering labour laws, food contents, environment standards and protections, working conditions and state-provided health and education services.

The TTIP negotiations, secret up to now, are a direct threat to existing standards and Trade Union collective bargaining. They signify privatisation on a massive scale and threaten the most essential rights won by the working class after generations of struggles.

This North West London GMB branch calls on the GMB leadership to help animate a national campaign of opposition to TTIP and stimulate all GMB affiliated Labour Party branches and Trades Councils to do the same.

This GMB branch resolves to send this resolution to all its own affiliated Trades Council and Labour Parties.

The 38 Degrees website has published useful downloadable campaign materials. This is from their blog:

If you’ve volunteered to get the word out on TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) during the 38 Degrees day of action on Saturday 30th August, you’re not alone – and here are all the important materials you’ll need.

Thousands of 38 Degrees members will be handing out leaflets, getting petition signatures and making sure people know about this terrible trade deal between the EU and the US. There are over 200 events happening across the UK and there’s still time to get involved.

Here are copies of the leaflets, posters, stickers and badges you can hand out on the day. Everyone who has signed up to volunteer will also get a pack of these in the post late next week. There will be 100 leaflets plus a poster, badge, sticker and petition in each posted pack.

To download copies of these online, please click the links below:

A5 leaflet

A3 poster

Badge

Bumper sticker

Petition

Feel free to print out or photocopy any of these. There is also a Welsh language flyer coming soon. If you want any extra materials posted to you, please just drop the staff team an email.

If you can’t download the PDF versions of the materials below, here are JPEG copies:

A5 flyer front
A5 flyer back
A3 poster
Badge
Bumper Sticker
Petition front
Petition back

Natalie Bennett: 'We are at a big change, a leap, in politics'

Natalie Bennett speaking at the Ecosocialism: Fracking, Climate and Revoution conference on Saturday whcih was organised by Socialist Resistance and Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century.

 

A particular strong speech was made by Fiona Brookes of the Campaign Against Climate Change

John Hilary: Recipe for Ruin - the TTIP

Responding to one of the commenters below, here is John  Hilary of War on Want on the TTIP

Green MEP warns on trade deal threat to NHS

Jean Lambert MEP has warned that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) damages democracy, threatens the future of the NHS and should be scrapped.

Speaking as negotiations between the European Commission and the US enter their fourth round in Brussels, Lambert said the free trade agreement could override important EU and UK laws which set standards and protect services – on issues such as food safety, data protection, health and the environment.

The London MEP was speaking at the launch of a joint report from her and Green MEP colleague Keith Taylor, which highlights some of the many dangers of the agreement to UK sovereignty.

The right to access public procurement – government spending, which could include the NHS – forms a major part of negotiations.

Transnational corporations from the US would have the right to enter the UK market – with 'regulatory harmonisation' between the EU and US companies leading to standards being watered down.

There is also the prospect that the UK government could be sued if it introduces regulations that might limit the future expected profit of services, making the liberalisation of services virtually irreversible.

Greens are the only major group in the European Parliament which currently opposes the trade deal.

Lambert said:

“These deals being made behind closed doors will have serious consequences for our rights - they will see democracy losing out to corporate power.

“We already know the Tory-Lib Dem coalition don't care about our public services staying in public hands – but this deal could stop future governments reversing their damaging privatisation agenda.

“The deal threatens to open the NHS to US companies, and close the door on a future government putting patients back before profits.

“This trade deal is not about free trade, but a free-for-all, slashing regulations in favour of big business.

“Greens are the only party putting human rights before corporate rights. This deal must be scrapped.”