Do we know what the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement brings us? The short answer is no, because the negotiations which kicked off over a year ago have been kept in full secrecy from the media and the society. The talks have been going on with the vast participation of representatives of big corporations from Europe and North America. Can we suggest what to expect? The short answer is yes, we can, because similar contracts have already been signed between the USA and other world markets such as Australia and Canada. In fact, this scenario has already failed once in the period 1995-1997 with the participation of 29 members of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. The text of the project was revealed in the very last moment by Le Monde Diplomatique and caused a huge wave of protests, which made its authors put the project back in the drawer. Fifteen years later the project is again on the table, yet dressed in new apparel, Lori M. Wallach writes in the same media in his article entitled The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - A Typhoon Which Threatens Europe, published one year ago. According to the analyst, the planned agreement aims at transferring the privileges of the multinational companies into a law, which could abolish part of the sovereignty of the national governments regarding the protection of a series of civil rights.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership means nothing for the Bulgarian people, because few talks have been held on this topic in Bulgaria. Small societies such as the ones of the Bulgarian environmentalists and party the Bulgarian labor unions have been trying to ring the bell together with their partners from both sides of the Atlantic. On October 11, 2014, activists and citizens of Sofia, Varna and Shumen joined the international protest against Fracking and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership organized in over 400 cities across the globe. Ivaylo Popov from For the Nature environmental society, part of Friend of Earth network, was among the organizers of this event in Bulgaria. The public discontent is mainly against the lack of transparence in these negotiations, Ivaylo explains. The European Commission has not allowed the official registration of petitions signed by the European citizens against such non-transparent agreement. Provided the EU citizens collect over 1 million signatures, the European authorities must respect their opinion when they start to adopt EU legislation. The European citizens have already managed to collect 600,000 signatures by October 11. Now the so-called non-tariff restrictions, which regard the industrial standards and the quality of the products, are on the agenda, which has a relation to environment, public health, the independence of the Internet, etc.
“We are going to witness lower standards in a given field both in the USA and Europe”, Ivaylo Popov forecasts. “The authorities will sacrifice safety and security, as well as our civil rights for higher trade volumes and the companies will register bigger profits.”
Here we can mention the goal of US companies which aim at introducing their genetically modified products and gas fracking (hydraulic fracturing) technologies in Europe, as well as abolishing the so-called principle of cautiousness in Europe regarding the implementation of new technologies, especially in the food industry, pharmacy and healthcare. According to the plan, a special commercial court is to judge on the disputes between the companies and hefty fines could be imposed on given countries which fail to respect the planned agreement. The countries would not be able to file any complaints, as it would be within the rights of the companies only. This mechanism has been developed some 50 years ago against the possibility of expropriation in Third World countries with unreliable judicial systems. However, this is not the case with the USA and Europe and this move is quite perplexing. We have many examples of countries sued by given corporations in many parts of the globe.
“Philip Morris sues Australia, because the authorities of that country have decided to carry out a policy aimed at reducing smoking. Canada was also forced to withdraw a similar legislative act. In other words, we are talking about the impossibility of a given state to adopt a legislation which protects human health, environment, the social rights of its citizens, etc. Let alone the amounts of the claims which would be detrimental for a poor country like Bulgaria.”
There are other little expected examples such as the lawsuit against Egypt for raising the minimum wages. According to similar agreements, such type of change would bring financial loses to given investors which plan their investment and calculate lower wages for their personnel! Moreover, the sanctions could be imposed for both gain loss and missed future earnings.
"The debate of this issue in Bulgaria has been held within the context of the confrontation between the USA and Russia. The opponents of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are quickly dubbed supporters of Vladimir Putin and respectively US opponents. “This is definitely a counter-productive approach, as contradiction in this case is not between USA and the EU, or the USA and Russia. It is between the multinational companies and the citizens who live on both sides of the Atlantic”, Ivailo Popov from For the Nature society concludes.
