|
from
TruePublica Website
is Nothing More than Political Deception Tactic
In the last few years protests broke out
all over Europe as the unelected bureaucrats steamed ahead with this
unpopular trade deal, even after the results of the largest ever
consultation study in the EU Commission's history resulted in a 97%
negative response of 150,000 people.
The beating heart of TTIP activism was,
This is not to forget the huge protest effort made by citizens across almost all of the EU's major cities.
Infographic: Corporate Europe Observatory
When preparing for TTIP negotiations, 560 meetings took place between 2012 and 2013. Just 4% were represented by public interest and civil society.
Unashamedly, the Commission allowed 92% of all TTIP meetings to be dominated by lobbyists and corporate trade associations Today, these shadowy agitators amount to over 30,000 grey suits stalking the halls of the Commission HQ in the de facto capital of the European Union in Brussels.
In May of this year Wikileaks confirmed that TTIP amounted to,
Greenpeace Netherlands then leaked 248 secret pages of the controversial trade deal between the U.S. and EU, exposing how environmental regulations, climate protections and consumer rights were effectively being,
Tensions amongst civil society rose to fever pitch with the devastating news.
Greenpeace sets up a transparent reading room where members of the public can consult copies of the TTIP leaks
Der Spiegel Germany wrote "Protests Threaten Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal" as the leaks became public.
With concerted effort activists seemingly brought the trade agreement to the brink of collapse within days. At the same time, Merkel's grandly staged meeting with US President Barack Obama in Hanover was nothing more than showmanship.
It aimed to show the strain of negotiations, as if somehow Germany (and therefore the EU) was going to get a better deal from TTIP and pacify the building rage of her citizens.
As if to rub salt into the wounds a report by TruePublica, published in The European Financial Review confirmed that corruption in the EU trading bloc had now reached 14 per cent of GDP - a staggering €1 trillion.
By now 70 per cent of all European citizens believe corruption to be at the heart of their respective governments and the EU Commission itself, and that a corporate coup d'tat is taking the place of democratic principles that Europe fought so hard for over generations.
Then, out of the blue, an unexpected announcement is made last week.
The media on all sides of the spectrum is broadly going along with the story that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel have agreed that negotiations between the EU and the US on TTIP, have essentially failed. That's it - the deal is dead.
Hoorah!
Not so fast...
You don't think that the American's are going to let the biggest trade deal in human history fail just because 97% of citizens reject it do you? No, France and Germany just need a plan.
After Brexit, Britain can stay out of the firing line of the protest movement for a while.
Mass protests in Japan, the second largest economy in the TPP bloc are under pressure by the US to open up its agricultural and automotive sectors.
So, they looked to Japan. It had the same problem with its version of the trade deal similarly called TPP.
Mass protests broke out as the same secret meetings gripped the political foreground. Its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, instructed the coalition early in the year not to "forcibly" proceed with the TPP negotiations until after elections, Kyodo News reported.
Abe genuinely "feared a voter backlash in the Upper House elections" amid the growing scandal of a 242 page leaked document laying bare the bones of the deal.
Having been elected June 11th, Abe now intends to force the deal through "this fall".
I made enquiries with sources close to the ground on the EU/US TTIP deal along the same lines; was this simply a delaying tactic until after elections in 2017 for France's Hollande and Germany's Merkel?
The response was not wholly unexpected.
In another exchange:
I then contacted Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).
It is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making. They have been exposing the misinformation and propaganda of the EU Commission for years.
The CEO response to my same question was emphatic and quite clear:
Germany and France have taken the same stance as Japan on these trade agreements, they are not dead at all - they are lying.
I then spoke to Peter Koenig, an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources and posed the same question.
He said:
Koenig continues,
Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now confirmed what Peter Koenig is saying in a Guardian piece "Think TTIP is a threat to democracy? There's another trade deal that's already signed".
What is missing from this statement is that any American corporation headquartered in Canada can sue any nation in the EU via CETA for the same reasons - namely, loss of 'expected' profits.
They don't actually have to be Canadian corporations.
As Global Justice also confirms, Canada has itself fought and lost a plentiful and diverse range of legal cases brought by US corporations under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for,
If TTIP doesn't bring this horrific erosion of democratic power to the shores of Europe, CETA will.
'Brexit' will mean for nothing. It will be sold to the British people as a global trade agreement which will be heralded as a great success and supported by much of the media who themselves have a vested interest in such deals.
In the end, does it matter if it's called TTIP, CETA, TISA and the like, they are all shadowy unaccountable acronyms designed to enrich the few via extreme neoliberal capitalism under the guise of "free trade"...
|
