Corporate control on both sides of the Atlantic will be solidified should the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership be passed. Any doubt about that was removed when Greenpeace Netherlands released 13 chapters of the TTIP text, although the secrecy of the text and that only corporate representatives have regular access to negotiators had already made intentions clear.

Health, safety, environmental and food laws will all be at risk, with United States negotiators continuing to seek the elimination of European safeguards against genetically modified organisms. But European Union negotiators, although as yet unable to find sufficient common ground with their U.S. counterparts on some issues, are offering plenty of dubious language at the behest of European multi-national corporations.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is very much similar to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and although negotiations over it are apparently far from complete it is firmly in the TPP’s anti-democratic spirit. The Transatlantic Partnership, just like other “free trade” agreements, has little to do with trade and much to do with granting the wish lists of corporate executives and financiers, complete with secret tribunals that can overturn legislation without appeal.

Under existing “free trade” agreements, the countries with stronger regulations, such as Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement, are routinely ordered to overturn them as “barriers” to trade. Smaller countries are routinely sued by multi-national corporations for attempting to safeguard sensitive environments or regulate tobacco, such as El Salvador’s attempt to protect its largest remaining water source from a gold mine. These suits are not heard in ordinary courts, but rather in secret tribunals in which corporate lawyers who specialize in representing multi-national capital in international disputes switch hats and sit in judgment of similar cases as judges.

Corporations would get last word on regulation

Despite the European Commission’s attempts to paint itself as heroically standing against U.S. insistence on forcing GMOs on European consumers, this EU language could be interpreted to overturn bans on GMOs. That is especially so in the wake of the already agreed-upon language of Article 5, where we read:

“When issuing or submitting any final administrative decision for an SPS regulation, the Party shall make publicly available on the Internet an explanation of: … any alternative identified through public comments, including by a Party, as significantly less restrictive to trade.”

Under this clause, governments must make the case on behalf of complaining corporations that want to eliminate a protective regulation! There is further language demanding that any new regulation be justified, including a requirement that a government explain why it did not adopt any alternatives that would be “less restrictive to trade.” There is precedent here under the North American Free Trade Agreement, in which a tribunal, in ordering that Canada reverse a ban against PCBs, a carcinogen banned under two Canadian treaties, ruled that, when formulating an environmental rule, a government “is obliged to adopt the alternative that is most consistent with open trade.” So much for democracy!

There is also an agriculture chapter, which contains this sentence: “The Parties shall work together to facilitate the successful conclusion of agriculture negotiations in the WTO that substantially improves market access for agricultural goods.” All the activist work that prevented the conclusion of World Trade Organization talks over the past decade would be undone, and provide an additional opening for GMOs and the elimination of other safety rules.......

The TTIP’s most blatant transgressions into Europe’s sovereignty, environmental and social regulations include:

• Opening of flood gates for privatization of public services such as water supply and sanitation, health services and education – for profit;

• Jeopardy of public health – as practices which are legal in the US would also be legalized in Europe, such as genetically modified food production, and hormone treatments of livestock and poultry;

• Endangering small-scale agriculture, as it would favor large agro-corporations over family farming;

• Making fracking legal in Europe;

• The universal right of foreign corporations to sue countries for compensation in secret arbitrary courts for foregone profits in case governments pass laws that could reduce profits – case in point: the Swedish energy company Vattenfall is seeking $6 billion in compensation for Germany’s nuclear phase-out – and chances are that Vattenfall may win its case;

• Opening ways for increased internet monitoring and surveillance; and

• Opening of flood gates for privatization of public services such as water supply and sanitation, health services and education – for profit;

• Excessive copyright regulations (pharmaceuticals and other monopoly prone industries), restricting free access to culture, education, and science.

The TTIP is practically irreversible. Once agreed and signed by Brussels and Washington, the treaty would be enforced by all EU members and could only be amended or revoked by agreement of all 28 EU members and the US. This would almost be impossible. An individual (no longer) ‘sovereign’ EU member government could no longer decide to drop out of the agreement if and when it realizes that the TTIP works against its public interest, since it is not the individual country that signs the TTIP, but the EU.

The only way out would be exiting or dissolving the EU.