Mass demonstrations against “economic NATO” took place in Europe
Huge protests took place this weekend in Europe against the signing of the Transatlantic Trade Partnership (TTIP). The largest demonstration took place in Berlin, attracting about 250 thousand protesters.
Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Kyiv" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
To simplify the issue a little, TTIP is a huge free trade zone between the United States and the European Union; a separate agreement will also regulate Canada’s accession to this zone. Thus, the EU and the US will create the largest free trade area in the world, with a population of more than 800 million people.
Hillary Clinton has already called TTIP an “economic NATO.” Americans are convinced that such economic integration will create millions of jobs and lead to significant economic growth.
This agreement, in its ideology, is reminiscent of the FTA agreement between the EU and Ukraine, which, among other things, became one of the reasons for the deepest socio-political crisis in the former Soviet republic. The reasons why Europeans oppose TTIP are similar to the arguments of opponents of the FTA with the EU in Ukraine. In particular, cheap and low-quality products from the United States are expected to flood into the European market and ruin local farmers.
In addition, Europeans are concerned about the quality of American goods.
Tourists from the ex-USSR, arriving in German cities, note an extremely low number of overweight people. In northern Europe you will hardly find fat people. And German teenagers are in good physical shape. At the same time, in the United States, every third person in the country suffers from excess weight; this has already become a national disaster. Many people believe that it's all about nutrition.
In Germany, when buying even the cheapest products in a supermarket, you can be sure of their quality, while in the USA products are full of chlorine, antibiotics, and preservatives. At the same time, the requirements for the environment, quality of goods, and animal welfare are much lower, which makes them very cheap.
Readers may remember “Bush legs” - cheap chicken legs that littered our shelves in the 90s. In those years, there was an increase in demand for chicken breast in the United States, and when millions of tons of chicken were divided, American producers ended up with huge amounts of “extra” legs. In order not to burn the goods, they were sold to the countries of the former USSR at a disposal price. Our manufacturers then could not compete with cheap American goods. It took years for domestic farms to get back on their feet and, by reducing costs and also introducing protectionist duties through their lobbying structures, managed to saturate the market with domestic chicken. Europeans, by the way, then carefully studied our experience.
But what angers TTIP opponents even more is the strict secrecy surrounding the agreement. By the way, if any of our readers has a copy of the draft agreement, they can count on a reward of 100 thousand euros, which were collected by activists in order to at least read this secret document.
The unprecedented secrecy surrounding negotiations between the US government and the EU shocked the European public. Only last year, the European Commission, a European super-government not accountable to anyone, published the general principles of the agreement, and then part of the documents and the text of TTIP.
It should be noted that since trade duties between the EU and the US are already very low, the agreement will be based on the removal of the so-called. non-tariff barriers, in particular, the EU will be forced to remove bans on hydraulic fracturing (so-called “shale gas”), remove restrictions on the import of GMOs, and simplify environmental regulations. In addition, the agreement gives enormous rights to corporations. In particular, a large investor can make claims against any country in the agreement, regardless of whether its own government supports it. At the same time, no one except corporations anymore has such rights. We can safely say that big capital is trying to squeeze the state even more out of economic life.
At large-scale protests in Europe, left and right protested together. If the left protests against big capital, which is concentrating more and more power, then the right opposes the loss of national sovereignty.
Some Canadian experts believe that TTIP is designed to protect the market of rich countries from outside competition, in particular, to combat China. Marina Albiol, a member of the European Parliament and a member of the Spanish United Left party, called the agreements “a hurricane that will sweep away the rights of citizens.”
250 thousand protesters in Berlin called on the EU and US authorities to think about the feasibility of the proposed agreement, but, of course, officials are far from deviating from the planned route.
It is too early to say whether this will lead to a political crisis within the EU. However, the experience of Ukraine has shown what consequences such a policy can lead to.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.