The big Corporations who will make £billions out of us.
1. TTIP is a proposed ‘free trade’ agreement between the US and the EU. The negotiations around it are shrouded in secrecy, but the information that has been forced out shows that if successful, the agreement would lead to deregulation of what we eat, how we work, and increase the power that large corporations hold over national governments.
2. TTIP also proposes to include the ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) mechanism. Already in action in several countries under the existing NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement), this allows corporations to directly sue governments for introducing legislation that reduces their profits.
3. The Center for Food Safety has already raised concerns about the potential for TTIP to establish a Regulatory Cooperation Council, which could result in ‘harmonisation’ of safety standards, meaning that food not meeting EU standards could be sold here anyway. Such products include chemically washed poultry, livestock treated with growth hormones, and genetically modified crops.
4. On both sides of the Atlantic, elected parliamentarians are only allowed limited access to information about the negotiations, while around 600 ‘corporate advisors’ have full access to this information.
The Greens say it is a power grab by Multi-Nationals. And that it circumvents elected Government. It is a US-EU contrived agreement which is supported by the Conservatives, Labour, LibDems and UKIP.