EU-US Trade negotiations: Germany emerges rightfully as most vocal opponent of potentially "bad" EU-US trade deal

"Say no to US-EU Trade Agreement"

At one point in the past Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wished "for nothing more than a free-trade agreement between the USA and the EU". But she did not wish for it to become a lop-sided agreement favoring mainly US multi-national corporations.

To the dismay of many in Brussels and Washington, Germans are now taking a very different view. That is putting Europe's biggest exporter in the unusual situation of becoming one of the most vocal opponents of what is advertised by the US as potentially the world's biggest trade deal.

Today European concerns about the threat to food and the environment have found their strongest voice in Germany, amplified by the country's influential Green party and anger at reports of US spying.

The difficulty of selling the benefits of a deal, which could generate  - ( the US says, but nobody knows from which hat they pulled that information) -  $100 billion a year in economic growth for both the EU and the United States, is a sign of the challenge for governments seeking to contain a growing hostility to the talks and the corporate influence in this potential deal.

"We do not want this sort of agreement," said Ska Keller, a 32-year-old Parliamentarian who gained prominence at home during European elections in May by putting the trade deal at the centre of her campaign. "I don't expect anything positive to come out of the negotiations," she told Reuters.

The trade deal is bad for Europe. It is advertised as creating more jobs and economic wealth, but nothing is said about where the wealth is going to and the uncontrolled power it is giving to tax evading multi-national corporations ( mainly American) and damage to the health of European citizens by allowing the consumption of genetically modified foods and the use of GM in agriculture and life-stock into this deal.  Only five EU countries presently  grow GM crops at all — Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.

Speaking ahead of a protest in Dublin against GM foods on Saturday,  an Irish official said that food standards are much higher in the EU than the US.

“You want trade between these countries but our standards are much higher than for the US. In the US the whole thing is run by multinational companies who are really only interested in the bottom line and money.

“The standard of food in Europe is much higher than it is there. My biggest concern would be is that you would have GM products all over the place and no body is going to know about it.
 
Political parties, focus groups, special interest groups throughout Europe should use every method at their disposal to stop this agreement from being adopted without major modifications, which includes removing corporate influence as part of the political process and decision making in administration this deal, establishing a permanent ban on the use of GM processes and products in the EU, and being far more specific in showing where and how new jobs will be produced and to whom and where the income generated will be going to.

In the case of the NAFTA agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, similar optimistic predictions were made about economics and job creation,  as are being made today in relation to this new potential EU-US trade deal, but the actual results of the NAFTA agreement have been dismal, except for multi-national corporations which are making out like bandits as a result of the corporate loopholes in that treaty. 

EU-Digest