Manifesto in English
StopTafta - The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement must not go ahead
Negotiated in secret by the European Commission and the United
States, the great transatlantic market (TAFTA) will be for nothing other
than the profit of multinational companies, and against the interests
of European and American citizens.
Since July 2013, the TAFTA free-trade agreement has been
negotiated outside the democratic framework by non-elected
representatives. Civil society and citizens are being left out while
multinational companies and other financial lobbies have direct access
to the negotiations. Inscribed in the negotiation mandate which the
agreement strives to impose is "the elimination, reduction or prevention
of superfluous national politics", a flagrant usurpation of the
people's sovereignty to establish their own laws and rules for health
safety.
Enough false promises of growth. After having provoked the
economic crisis we are currently experiencing, the multinationals are
using it as an excuse to liquidate all forms of market regulation and
rules protecting citizens. The highly speculative estimates of the
"experts" hail a growth increase of 0.06% and the creation of 500,000
jobs, but how many will be destroyed at the same time?
We refuse the plundering of public money by the multinationals.
Within the Commission's negotiation mandate, it is stipulated that a
court be created without admitting regulations concerning disputes
between States and multinationals: in other words, foreign companies are
recognized the right to file lawsuits against the State for damages
and interests totaling millions of dollars whenever a public policy
obstructs their profits.
A few good reasons to Stop TAFTA:
- Food safety: Our rules, stricter than international and
American norms (concerning pesticides, GMOs, hormones in beef, etc.),
could be condemned as "illegal commercial barriers".
- Shale gas: Hydraulic fracturing, heretofore prohibited
in France due to its dangers to the environment, would become a "right"
for oil companies, who would be able to demand damages and interests
from States in the event they refused these operations.
- Water and energy: These assets would be able to be
privatized. All towns opposing this could be accused of hindering
freedom of trade. Ditto for energy; whether fossil fuels, nuclear or
renewable.
- Public services: TAFTA would limit the power of States
to organize public services such as human services, road transport and
railways, and it would reduce the principles of universal and mass
access to these essential needs for the benefit of general
privatization.
- Internet freedom: The giants of the Net wish to weaken
the European regime concerning protection of personal data in order to
reduce it to the (almost non-existent) level of the United States, in
this way authorizing legal espionage which is quite lucrative for
private firms, fully in line with ACTA.
The revelations concerning espionage on European leaders by the
American National Security Agency demonstrate that these negotiations
are fundamentally polluted. Given these conditions, it is impossible for
the final text to serve the general interest.
*TAFTA = TTIP = PTCI : Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement /
Source: "Le traité transatlantique, un typhon qui menace les européens" (The Trans-Atlantic Treaty, a typhoon that threatens Europeans),
le Monde diplomatique, November 2013
Source: Stop TAFTA |
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