Vegan Sustainability Magazine - Autumn 2015

The TTIP:
A threat to democracy
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will benefit
big corporations at the expense of democracy and citizens’ rights.
The EU soon intends to sign two far-reaching
trade agreements: one with Canada (CETA =
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement)
and one with the USA (TTIP = Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership). The official
line is that this will create jobs and increase economic
growth. However, the beneficiaries of these
agreements are not in fact citizens, but big corporations:
Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS):
Foreign investors (i.e. Canadian and US companies)
receive the right to sue for damages if
they believe that they have suffered losses because
of laws or measures of the EU or of individual
EU member states. This can also affect
laws which were enacted in the interest of
the common good, such as environmental and
consumer protection.
elected parliaments. This undermines democracy!
Groups of companies are intended to be included
even during the elaboration of new
regulations and laws if their trade interests
could be affected. The name for this is:
“regulatory cooperation”. It means that representatives
of big business are invited to participate
in expert groups to influence new draft
laws, even before these are discussed in the
Big business had, and still has, excessive influence
on the secret negotiations relating to
CETA and TTIP. Alone in the preparatory
phase for TTIP, 590 meetings took place between
the EU Commission and lobby representatives,
according to official statements. 92% of
these meetings were with representatives of
companies, while only in a few cases there were
discussions with consumer and trade union representatives.
And also during the negotiations,
representatives of industry are exercising influence.
Some formulations in draft texts which
have filtered through to the public originate directly
from the pens of company lobbyists.
The negotiations are conducted in secret. Even
our public representatives know little if anything
about their progress. They receive the re-
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