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EU ministers demand complete restart of the controversial trade deal that has sparked mass protests across the continent. European Union ministers today admitted that a giant EU-US trade deal is dead in its current form, with drastic change needed to salvage any hope of a deal going ahead.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] has sparked a widespread backlash and now lies in tatters in the wake of massive protests across the continent.
Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said that the pact now has, "such negative connotations", that the best hope was to "completely relaunch with a new name after the US elections. Mitterlehner also demanded "more transparency and clearer objectives." Negotiations for the free-trade zone have so far been held behind closed doors.
Slovak economy minister Peter Ziga, was similarly pessimistic, saying that a "new start or some new approach [was] needed, while EU trade commissioner " Cecilia Malmstroem said the likelihood of a deal was "becoming smaller and smaller", as she entered the talks.
Several EU representatives blamed US intransigence for the gridlock. The deal now has "only a small chance of success unless the United States starts to give a bit of ground," Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said.
Public services, especially the NHS [National Health Service], are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe's public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS. The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to The Huffington ost, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table
[...] The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment. Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Sunday September 25 2016, @09:27PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @10:57PM
I was under the impression that these trade agreements were written prior to the unanticipated outcome of the Brexit vote, and thus, did not contain the possibility that the UK would somehow no longer be able to participate as written.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday September 26 2016, @06:59AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Monday September 26 2016, @09:40AM
Just a hunch, but I'm imagining that maybe the Murdoch newspapers are spinning it like:
"We need Brexit! The undemocratic faceless EU overlords are trying to foist TTIP on poor Great Britain! All those countries like Sweden and Germany and Italy just want to kiss America's ass and overrule sovereign democratic governments with ISDS!
The EU commission is trying to privatize away our NHS! That is something that obviously an even-more-rightwing Tory government [wikipedia.org] with people like Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt [wikipedia.org] would NEVER EVER dream of doing!"
You know, just turn it 180° around, and see if enough people believe it.
BTW what I put between quote marks was not a real quote, I sucked all that out of my big thumb. Just for clarity.