Tag Archives: commission

TTIP: What bit of the word ‘no’ doesn’t the Commission understand? Updated for 2026

Even a tyrant might baulk at effecting a policy which 97% of people oppose. But the European Commission is moving forward with the US-EU trade deal (known as TTIP), despite getting just that result from its largest consultation in history. Nonetheless, corporate plans for this huge trade deal have been badly damaged.

Last year, in response public criticism, the Commission issued a consultation on so-called ‘investor protection’. That’s the bit of trade deals which gives corporations the right to sue governments for implementing policies that damage their profits. So for Investor protection read corporate privilege.

Not surprisingly it’s hugely unpopular. Over 97% all of the 150,000 respondents to the Commission’s consultation – that’s more than 100 times that of any previous trade consultation – rejected investor protection outright.

Where’s the ‘I don’t want this’ box?

Unfortunately, the Commission insists that they were answering a question that hadn’t been asked. At no point in the whole dense, legalistic consultation document were participants given an option to say ‘we don’t want this’.

Rather they were asked questions almost impossible to understand by anyone who isn’t a trade lawyer. When campaign groups created an easy-to-follow online response action, they were accused of “hijacking” the process.

On Tuesday, the Commission released its findings in full. They show that an enormous number of EU citizens responded to the consultation, more than any consultation in history, as well as nearly 450 businesses, campaign organisations, think tanks and trade unions.

The analysis shows that this really is a battle between big business and the rest of us. The exclusion of public services is “strongly opposed by a significant number of business associations who want to see exceptions and limitations brought down to a minimum.”

Unsurprisingly, corporate giants like Chevron, Suez and Repsol, which have sued countries under similar investor protection, are fully supportive of those systems. Indeed some reject any weakening of a system which has allowed tobacco giant Philip Morris to sue Uruguay for putting health warnings on cigarette packets.

But even across the business world, there is no consensus. “[S]mall companies are more critical” – not surprising given small business is unlikely to have access to this world of corporate privilege.

UK: Cameron is all for it, we are all against it

The country generating most response to the EU (52,000 participants) is Britain. This is good, because the British government is pushing investor protection more than any other. Last year they intervened to make sure the Commission kept its nerve.

Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström admitted on Tuesday that the “consultation clearly shows that there is a huge scepticism against the ISDS [investor protection] instrument”, but she will continue to try to work out a compromise nonetheless. This is deeply worrying because the last compromise made in the Canada-EU treaty (CETA) actually risks giving corporations more power.

The deal has been welcomed by veteran investment arbitrator Todd Weiler: “I love it, the new Canadian-EU treaty … we used to have to argue about all of those [foreign investor rights] … And now we have this great list. I just love it when they try to explain things.”

The Commission now embarks on further ‘consultation’. But they have been dealt a serious blow by campaigners from across Europe, who now need to get even more active.

Will the European Parliament step up to the mark?

The European Parliament will adopt a position on TTIP in May. Early signs are that this will be a real showdown and vitally important to whether or not TTIP passes into law.

German Social Democrat Bernd Lange from the trade committee, one of the most important parliamentarians on TTIP, wrote last month that everything important “can be attained in TTIP without the inclusion of ISDS provisions”.

The Environment Committee has been even more critical, worrying “that the TTIP and other mega trade deals are likely to reshape global trade rules and set new standards, while also being discriminatory … risking sidelining important issues for developing countries such as food security, agricultural subsidies and climate change mitigation”

2015 is the make or break year for TTIP, and the coming months are vitally important. To have any hope of stopping this corporate juggernaut, we need to win critical votes in the EU Parliament on TTIP and CETA.

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

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TTIP: What bit of the word ‘no’ doesn’t the Commission understand? Updated for 2026

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Where’s the ‘I don’t want this’ box?

UK: Cameron is all for it, we are all against it

The Commission now embarks on further ‘consultation’. But they have been dealt a serious blow by campaigners from across Europe, who now need to get even more active.

Will the European Parliament step up to the mark?

The European Parliament will adopt a position on TTIP in May. Early signs are that this will be a real showdown and vitally important to whether or not TTIP passes into law.

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

389224

TTIP: What bit of the word ‘no’ doesn’t the Commission understand? Updated for 2026

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Where’s the ‘I don’t want this’ box?

UK: Cameron is all for it, we are all against it

The Commission now embarks on further ‘consultation’. But they have been dealt a serious blow by campaigners from across Europe, who now need to get even more active.

Will the European Parliament step up to the mark?

The European Parliament will adopt a position on TTIP in May. Early signs are that this will be a real showdown and vitally important to whether or not TTIP passes into law.

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

389224

TTIP: What bit of the word ‘no’ doesn’t the Commission understand? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply

Where’s the ‘I don’t want this’ box?

UK: Cameron is all for it, we are all against it

The Commission now embarks on further ‘consultation’. But they have been dealt a serious blow by campaigners from across Europe, who now need to get even more active.

Will the European Parliament step up to the mark?

The European Parliament will adopt a position on TTIP in May. Early signs are that this will be a real showdown and vitally important to whether or not TTIP passes into law.

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

389224

Commission dumps eco-initiatives in 2015 work plan Updated for 2026

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The European Commission today decided to delay vital action plans on tackling air pollution and using precious resources more carefully.

The changes are based on its Regulatory Fitness Programme, it said, “which seeks to cut red tape and remove regulatory burdens, contributing to an environment conducive to investment.”

President Jean-Claude Juncker explained: “We are committed to driving change and to leading an EU that is bigger and more ambitious on big things, and smaller and more modest on small things.”

And the environment, it seems, is one of the “small things” that can be shuffled off for another day – even though the proposed National Emissions Ceilings Directive (NEC Directive) would save an estimated 58,000 lives and €40 Billion per year.

Soon, a decade of delays – while people die

The air quality plans would return at a later date “as part of the legislative follow-up to the 2030 Energy and Climate Package”, insisted the Commission.

But this is only adding delay to delay – the NEC Directive was originally expected in 2005 but then delayed because of the 2008 Climate and Energy Package, and did not appear until 2013. Now ClientEarth lawyer Alan Andrews fears a further delay of several years:

“It looks like Juncker has kicked this into the long grass. This proposal is already nearly ten years overdue – we can’t afford to wait another ten. Further delay will mean more people will die or be made seriously ill from heart attacks, strokes, cancer and asthma.

“The UK government views environmental regulation as ‘red tape’ so has stood quietly by and let this happen. British MEPs of all political stripes have played a leading role in opposing Juncker’s plans to scrap the proposal – it’s time the government showed similar leadership.”

Friends of the Earth Director Andy Atkins agrees: “These crucial plans should have been fast-tracked, not parked. Tens of thousands of people in Britain alone die prematurely each year from air pollution. Delaying the action that is desperately required will cost yet more lives.”

Europe claims a proud history of protecting our health and environment, he added, “but recent decisions have put a huge dent in its green reputation.”

Also dropped was a proposal to designate the heavily polluted Baltic Sea as a ‘Nitrogen Oxide Emissions Control Area’ on the grounds that “no foreseeeable agreement” would be reached.

Circular economy package – in a permanent loop?

Another major caualty is the ‘Circular Economy Package’ which would reduce waste by encouraging better design, re-use and recycling.

The Commission says that a “new, more ambitious proposal” on resource use would be submitted in 2015, while the driving rationale for its changes to the work programme is to focus all energies on “jobs, growth and investment”.

However a letter from Ikea, Unilever, M&S, Kingfisher, and manufacturers’ association EEF opposing the Commission’s plans to ditch the package was published in the Daily Telegraph today.

The package, they wrote, “offers huge potential for job creation, resource security, environmental protection and economic growth in Britain and the rest of Europe and abandoning it would be short-sighted.

“There is a great deal of support for the package from many sectors, and the World Economic Forum has suggested that developing the circular economy would save $1 trillion a year.”

According to the Impact Assessment of the Circular Economy Package, its full implentation – including an EU-wide increase in recycling rates to 70% – would create 580,000 new jobs.

Eleven member states plead to retain the package

The UK industrialists’ letter urged UK ministers to “send a clear message to Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the Commission, that the programme must be retained to protect the continent’s environment, economy and competitiveness in the long term.”

But their voice was not heard in government. The Commission’s decision was taken despite 11 member states urging it not to withdraw the proposal – but the UK was not among them. “The silence from the UK government has been deafening”, says Atkins.

Finally UK environment minister Dan Rogerson said this morning that the government supports the NEC Directive on air quality – but believes amendments are needed to make the 2030 targets “realistic”.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged commission, delay, dumps, initiatives, more, package, plan, work on 16/12/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

Europe on the brink – green future or industrial wasteland? Updated for 2026

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In the UK’s debate over its future membership of the EU, the broad ‘progressive’ spectrum of voters has long been in the pro-EU camp.

That’s not because ‘we’ like everything about the EU. It’s because the EU has offered unmistakable benefits for people and the environment – from the Working Time Directive, limiting the hours employees may be forced to work, to the Habitats & Species Directive, protecting our most precious wildlife, and the Air Quality Directive, which is forcing cuts in atmospheric pollution that are already preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths.

There is no doubt that a reluctant UK – once the proverbial ‘dirty man of Europe’ – has been forced to be infinitely cleaner and greener than it would ever have been on its own. The same goes for many other countries. The benefits have been enormous and unmistakeable.

The Dark is Rising

But there is another side to the EU, built as it was on the disreputable foundations of the Coal and Steel Community and the Euratom Treaty. This is a Europe of vested corporate interests, of over-powerful business lobbies, of jealously guarded privilege, secrecy and dodgy back-room political deals, of weak-wristed regulators unwilling or unable to clamp down on corporate abuses.

And today, it is all too clear which aspect of the EU dominates in the Junckers Commission. In the name of “focusing on what truly matters for citizens – jobs, growth and investment” the Commission is reining in desperately needed regulation to give citizens a clean and safe environment.

Proposed laws to reduce the air pollution that’s still killing some 400,000 people a year are to be scrapped – if Junckers and his troglodytic henchman Timmermans get their way in the College of Commissioners next Tuesday.

Under the name of ‘better regulation’ the whole ‘circular economy’ package to reduce waste to landfill and increase recycling would get bunged into the Commission’s capacious paper-shredder.

There have also been powerful calls to make the Habitats and Birds Directives more adaptable to local needs for example to allow Malta to carry on massacring migrating birds. You can be sure that the adaptation would only go one way – to weaken the laws, not to strengthen them.

Nuclear resurgence

The EU has also shown itself to be far too adaptable for its own good in its interpretation of it’s all important ‘state aid’ rules when it comes to nuclear power.

In October the Commission mysteriously approved a support package worth as much as £35 billion for the UK’s proposed Hinkley C nuclear power station – deeming, against a mountain of evidence, that it somehow maintained a ‘level playing field’ in the UK’s power market, even as it decimated the country’s renewable industries.

And now, following the UK’s inability to raise construction finance in spite of astonishingly generous power prices for nuclear power and a £10 billion construction finance guarantee, the Commission has approved three planned UK nuclear power stations (Hinkley Point C, Wylfa, and Moorside) to appear on its 2015 ‘infrastructure plan’ – putting them in line for as much as €46 billion in loan finance led by the European Investment Bank.

In fact the EU support is meant to be strictly reserved for projects that are economically viable and deliverable in the short term – which is clearly the very opposite of the case as regards the UK’s nuclear projects, which may require as much as £100 billion in subsidies and will not be deliverable for well over a decade.

Indeed, the infrastructure plan spells out the problems they face in clear terms, with strong “barriers” to investment. “High construction cost, long payback period is making debt raising difficult”, the document reveals.

The same applies to Poland’s struggling coal industry – also in line for €8 billion of ‘infrastructure’ funds to build new lignite coal mines, new power stations and extend the lifetimes of old coal plants that would otherwise have to be shut down.

Sacrificing democracy on the altar of ‘free trade’

At the same time the Commission is galloping into deeply unpopular trade and investment deals with the USA and Canada known as TTIP and CETA. Negotiations have been taking place in secret, excluding not just civil society but even MEPs and legislators in national member state Parliaments.

Most vexatious are the ‘investor dispute settlement’ procedures that would allow investors to sue national government for losses incurred due to regulatory changes affecting their anticipated profits.

As such, governments could be liable for losses caused by tightening pollution laws, raising the minimum wage, applying tighter limits on the release of environmental toxins, reversing the privatisation of public services, or a host of other actions. The damages would be awarded in secret courts composed of corporate lawyers.

TTIP / CETA would also involve ‘mutual recognition’ of standards between the EU and the USA and Canada, forcing EU consumers to accept North American GMO crops and meat and dairy produce from animals treated with yield-increasing growth hormones, currently banned from EU markets.

Astonishingly, the Commission even refused to accept an offical petition signed by over 1 million EU citizens known as a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) – on the manifestly false grounds that ECIs can only support the Commission’s proposals, and not oppose them.

How much longer can the EU count on our support?

It increasingly appears that the European Commission has decided, in the name of ‘jobs’, ‘investment’, ‘trade’ and ‘prosperity’ to abandon all the core values that once made the EU attractive to liberal and green minded voters, and abandon itself wholesale to the corporate lobbyists that stalk its corridors and enjoy privileged access to its officials.

And when it comes to a referendum on the UK’s continued EU membership,will surely leave progressive voters bereft of any positive enthusiasm to stay in.

Of course, it may be that the UK on its own would pursue even worse social and environmental policies, and that our own clay-footed politicians would be even more ready to sacrifice our rights, liberties and democratic traditions to corporate interests.

But that is to miss the point. To win a close-run election, the most important thing is not to so much win over opponents to your cause, but to get your own vote out on the day.

To get progressives to deliver their pro-EU votes – surely a necessary counterbalance to the now mainstream anti-EU right – we must be offered a positive vision of the Europe we want, and that our children have a right to enjoy.

And that means a green Europe, leading the world in renewable energy technologies, delivering social and environmental benefits to its citizens, founded on a bedrock of social justice, and rebalancing power away from profit-driven corporations, and to the people.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged brink, commission, europe, future, green, industrial, nuclear, power on 12/12/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

Leaked: EU Commission plot to ditch waste and air pollution laws Updated for 2026

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The European Commission plans to scrap its flagship Circular Economy package and anti-air pollution rules next week.

The executive will ditch the rules from its 2015 work programme, sources told EurActiv. The announcement is expected to be made next week, on Wednesday 17th December following a College of commissioners meeting the previous day.

The Circular Economy package is designed to increase resource efficiency and recycling, and the Clean Air Package imposes rules that set member states’ air quality targets.

Sources told EurActiv that Commissioners were handed a secret document yesterday (10 December) at their weekly meeting.

The document, outlining a list of bills to be killed off by Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans, was taken back from the Commissioners, after it was read and discussed.

Greg Archer, Transport & Environment’s clean vehicles manager, commented: “President Juncker and vice-president Timmermans think they are playing a clever PR card by axing the Clean Air package in a bid to cut so-called ‘red tape’.

“But the fact is air pollution is the single biggest environmental concern of Europeans and the press has stories week-in week-out about how dirty air is choking our cities and causes 400,000 premature deaths a year.”

Environmental laws ditched, air quality rules weakeed

A leaked version of the work programme, which emerged today, appeared to confirm the environmental laws, and 78 other pieces of pending legislation, would be scrapped. The Air Quality rules would be modified in view of the 2030 Climate and Energy package, the document said.

Timmermans is conducting a screening exercise of pending legislation as part of the Commission’s drive for “better regulation”. He sent a letter to the Commissioners last month, which suggested the rules were under threat.

Commissioners will meet on Tuesday to discuss the programme. An official announcement should follow the next day in the European Parliament. The decision has not yet been finalised and could still change. Any withdrawal will first be discussed with the European Parliament and Council.

EurActiv has obtained a copy of a letter sent by European Parliament President Martin Schulz to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, dated 9th November. Schulz stressed concerns that environmental and social policy feature adequately in the programme.

Both bills were on a hit list of laws that the influential trade association BusinessEurope sent to the Commission. BusinessEurope wanted the Circular Economy package to be withdrawn and re-tabled as an economic piece of legislation. Laws to reduce air pollution should be withdrawn, they said.

Juncker’s plans run into fierce opposition

Environmental NGOs responding by writing to Juncker and Timmermans, asking the Commission to speed up the implementation of the bills.

Among them was Pieter de Pous, the European Environmental Bureau’s policy director, who complained of the “extremely negative message to European citizens” the Commission was sending out.

“Basically, it no longer cares about improving their health and quality of life, nor will it try to protect the environment. Instead it is guided by short-sighted business interests which are unwilling to develop new and cleaner business models. ‘Better regulation’ is deregulation pure and simple.”

Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden wrote a letter to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 1st December, calling on him to keep the Air Quality and Circular Economy packages.

The European Commission said it could not confirm or deny the legislation would be ditched, as the contents of its work programme had not yet been finalised:

“This Commission is committed to making a difference and to doing things differently. The Work Programme for 2015 will be an opportunity for a fresh start, focusing on what truly matters for citizens – jobs, growth and investment …

“The Commission is also reviewing all pending proposals, in accordance with the principle of political discontinuity and to allow all the institutions to focus their efforts on priorities. The Commission is considering proposing to withdraw proposals which do not match the political priorities or which are out of date.

“In some cases the Commission, whilst fully supporting the objectives behind certain proposals, is considering withdrawing them to replace them with more effective means to achieve them, with a realistic chance of being adopted.

“The Commission is also looking at how to put a renewed effort into implementing what already exists, also making sure it’s fit for purpose and works on the ground.”

Laws and rules at risk

The Circular Economy package was proposed in July 2014. It contained a wide-ranging list of legally binding targets. They include:

a 70% recycling target for municipal waste by 2030;

an 80% recycling target for packaging, such as glass, paper, metal and plastic by 2030;

and a ban on landfilling of all recyclable and biodegradable waste by 2025.

The package also lists a series of “aspirational” goals, which are not legally enforceable:

a phase out of landfilling of all recoverable waste by 2030;

a 30% reduction of waste by 2025;

and a 30% fall in marine litter by 2020.

The Air Quality package revises rules first set in 1999. The 2013 proposal revises targets set in 1999, toughening then and increasing its scope to cover some new pollutants.

It fixes emissions ceilings at national level, for nitrogen dioxide for example, obliging member states to hit air quality targets. Supporters say it is the only way to reduce cross-border pollution in the EU. Sectors such as vehicle and fuel legislation, shipping regulations and UN agreements are covered by the draft law.

Green MEPS were also appalled at Junckers’ proposal. “Allowing air pollution to go unchecked would mean sentencing children and adults to poor respiratory health and earlier death”, said Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England.

“I call on European Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker to keep this crucial piece of legislation in order to protect the health of our 507 million European Citizens.”

Better environment protection benefits us all!

Angelo Caserta, director of Birdlife Europe and current chair of the ‘Green 10’ group of leading environmental NGOs in Europe, said:

“We are deeply concerned that environmental protection and sustainability is not only going to be absent in the Commission’s Workplan for 2015 but that Vice-President Timmermans is even planning to withdraw two recently proposed pieces of legislation that would bring major benefits for citizens’ health, the environment as well as for Europe’s economy – the air package and circular economy package.

“By withdrawing the air quality proposal, the European Commission would miss the opportunity to prevent as many as 58,000 premature deaths per year that result from air pollution, when the current toll is 400,000 premature deaths per year.

We would also miss a huge economic benefit to the European economy as the air quality directive would deliver health benefits of €40-140 billion in avoided external costs and provide about €3 billion in direct benefits due to higher productivity of the workforce, lower healthcare costs, higher crop yields and less damage to buildings.

“Withdrawing the circular economy package would also go against the number one priority of the European Commission. Europe would fail to create as many as 180,000 new jobs through turning waste into a resource while making business more competitive and reducing demand for and dependency from costly scarce resources from outside the continent.”

This article was originally published by EurActiv.

More from EurActiv:

Gender equality and environment laws on business lobby hit list.

Don’t axe gender and environment laws, NGOs tell Timmermans.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged commission, ditch, european, leaked, package, plot, rules, waste on 12/12/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

TTIP – challenging the European Commission’s unlawful intransigence Updated for 2026

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Well, thanks to some encouraging ruckus in the last few months, you may actually have heard of TTIP: the anodynely-acronymed ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’.

In plain English, it’s a massive trade deal between the EU and North America which could affect everything from healthcare choices to government banking regulations to the air we breathe. (And it gets better, TPP is the US-Asia Pacific counterpart.)

Activists and even some politicians have been up in arms about one particularly nasty element of these behemoths, which together will cover almost 50% of global GDP.

That element is the proposed secret courts where, in theory, oil companies could sue governments who try to bring in green-friendly policies, tobacco companies could challenge advertising restrictions, and private healthcare providers could pick apart what’s left of national health services. To name a few.

Don’t mention the deal behind the curtain

But in truth, we just don’t know what TTIP will mean because the negotiations are happening in secret. And the European Commission has made a mockery of its own European Citizens’ Initiative, whereby citizens are supposed to be able to register dissent.

Last September it refused to ‘allow’ that dissent to be registered – a spectacular own goal because, in making it so plain that this supposedly democratic mechanism is toothless, it paved the way for a challenge in the courts – filed this morning in the European Court of Justice.

Stop TTIP – an alliance counting over 250 organisations from across Europe – had tried to use the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to repeal the negotiating mandate for TTIP and not to conclude CETA – the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement.

The ECI was established with the Lisbon Treaty and was regarded as a major improvement of the “democratic life of the European Union”.

Long before requesting registration of the ECI, Stop TTIP asked for a legal pre-check of our petition text. A public servant of the Commission said that it would be no problem to get an answer.

But even after phoning and e-mailing again and again, they failed to deliver an answer. That´s why we decided to submit our request on 15 July.

The Commission’s highly questionable legalities

Then the Commission needed another two months to refuse the registration in a short letter based on two surprising arguments:

The first is that the Commission sees the mandate for an international agreement only as a preparatory act with no legal effect on citizens, and so could not be influenced by an ECI. This interpretation has no basis in the European Treaties. An ECI could request a legal act. There is no need to request a legal act with direct effect on citizens.

The second is even more disturbing. The Commission distinguishes between two forms of ECIs directed at the conclusion of an international agreement of the EU. The first one is to request positively the conclusion of an agreement. This is admissible according to the Commission.

But when an ECI – as in our case – wants to say No to the conclusion of an agreement it is not admissible because it produces no legal effect on citizens. This formalistic approach is more than questionable from a legal point of view.

‘Say want you want but it doesn’t change anything’

Politically, the argument of the Commission has a simple message: international trade agreements should be negotiated without public intervention. It is absolutely unacceptable that, after secret negotiations over which we have no influence, the European Parliament and the public are presented with a fait accompli.

The Commissions’ decision is very much in line with similar acts in the last months. For example, look at the so-called consultation on investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) in TTIP.

The retiring trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht – who denounces some TTIP critics as liars – regarded the coordinated contributions of 150,000 people to the consultation as an “attack” on the system. And shortly after the deadline of the consultation, he proudly declared the CETA negotiations as finalized.

The draft text has a chapter on ISDS almost identical to that of the consultation on ISDS in TTIP. So the Commissions’ maxim seems to be: “you can say want you want but it doesn´t change anything.”

Even national parliaments are excluded

The Commission also wants to avoid the ratification of CETA and TTIP in the national parliaments. It regards the treaties as ‘EU-only’ agreements, only to be ratified in the European Parliament and concluded by the Council. Not only do the people of Europe have no say or ‘right to know’ – nor even do national parliaments.

What we do know, however, are the lessons from recent history. As Saskia Sassen, who has looked at this question for decades, points out: time and again, when global corporations gain rights through free trade deals, citizens lose out – in large part through a negative boomerang effect of job losses and wage stagnation that cheaper goods just don’t compensate for.

We also know that it’s farcical of the European Commission to try and claim that Europe’s citizens cannot have a say in this process because the treaty will have “no legal effect” on citizens. Grist to the mill of UKIP and others – as if they needed it.

So, how will we proceed with the ECI campaign? We will not be ending our protest just because the European Commission wants to gain time with an unfounded and politically motivated rejection.

Democracy arises through social intervention and participation in the political process; it is not something to be granted or denied by Brussels. That is why in early October, we launched an unofficial self-organised European Citizens’ Initiative.

The European Commission is trying to ignore us. We will ignore the European Commission. And this morning we – the Stop TTIP coalition laid down our challenge to the Commissions’ decision at the European Court of Justice.

Mary Fitzgerald is Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy. Before joining oD she worked for Avaaz, the global campaigning organisation, and is a former Senior Editor of Prospect Magazine. She has written for the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and others. Follow her on Twitter @maryftz

Michael Efler is a member of the citizens´ committee of the ECI Stop TTIP.

For more information please visit: Stop TTIP.

To sign the unofficial Citizens Initiative please visit: Stop TTIP.

Also on The Ecologist:

‘Lawsuit served on Commission for blocking TTIP challenge‘.

‘TTIP threatens EU nations with corporate weapons of mass destruction‘ by Kevin Albertson.

This article was originally published on Open Democracy with additional reporting also from Open Democracy.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged agreement, challenging, citizens, commission, Ecologic, european, ttip, unlawful on 11/11/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

TTIP – challenging the European Commission’s unlawful intransigence Updated for 2026

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Well, thanks to some encouraging ruckus in the last few months, you may actually have heard of TTIP: the anodynely-acronymed ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’.

In plain English, it’s a massive trade deal between the EU and North America which could affect everything from healthcare choices to government banking regulations to the air we breathe. (And it gets better, TPP is the US-Asia Pacific counterpart.)

Activists and even some politicians have been up in arms about one particularly nasty element of these behemoths, which together will cover almost 50% of global GDP.

That element is the proposed secret courts where, in theory, oil companies could sue governments who try to bring in green-friendly policies, tobacco companies could challenge advertising restrictions, and private healthcare providers could pick apart what’s left of national health services. To name a few.

Don’t mention the deal behind the curtain

But in truth, we just don’t know what TTIP will mean because the negotiations are happening in secret. And the European Commission has made a mockery of its own European Citizens’ Initiative, whereby citizens are supposed to be able to register dissent.

Last September it refused to ‘allow’ that dissent to be registered – a spectacular own goal because, in making it so plain that this supposedly democratic mechanism is toothless, it paved the way for a challenge in the courts – filed this morning in the European Court of Justice.

Stop TTIP – an alliance counting over 250 organisations from across Europe – had tried to use the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to repeal the negotiating mandate for TTIP and not to conclude CETA – the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement.

The ECI was established with the Lisbon Treaty and was regarded as a major improvement of the “democratic life of the European Union”.

Long before requesting registration of the ECI, Stop TTIP asked for a legal pre-check of our petition text. A public servant of the Commission said that it would be no problem to get an answer.

But even after phoning and e-mailing again and again, they failed to deliver an answer. That´s why we decided to submit our request on 15 July.

The Commission’s highly questionable legalities

Then the Commission needed another two months to refuse the registration in a short letter based on two surprising arguments:

The first is that the Commission sees the mandate for an international agreement only as a preparatory act with no legal effect on citizens, and so could not be influenced by an ECI. This interpretation has no basis in the European Treaties. An ECI could request a legal act. There is no need to request a legal act with direct effect on citizens.

The second is even more disturbing. The Commission distinguishes between two forms of ECIs directed at the conclusion of an international agreement of the EU. The first one is to request positively the conclusion of an agreement. This is admissible according to the Commission.

But when an ECI – as in our case – wants to say No to the conclusion of an agreement it is not admissible because it produces no legal effect on citizens. This formalistic approach is more than questionable from a legal point of view.

‘Say want you want but it doesn’t change anything’

Politically, the argument of the Commission has a simple message: international trade agreements should be negotiated without public intervention. It is absolutely unacceptable that, after secret negotiations over which we have no influence, the European Parliament and the public are presented with a fait accompli.

The Commissions’ decision is very much in line with similar acts in the last months. For example, look at the so-called consultation on investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) in TTIP.

The retiring trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht – who denounces some TTIP critics as liars – regarded the coordinated contributions of 150,000 people to the consultation as an “attack” on the system. And shortly after the deadline of the consultation, he proudly declared the CETA negotiations as finalized.

The draft text has a chapter on ISDS almost identical to that of the consultation on ISDS in TTIP. So the Commissions’ maxim seems to be: “you can say want you want but it doesn´t change anything.”

Even national parliaments are excluded

The Commission also wants to avoid the ratification of CETA and TTIP in the national parliaments. It regards the treaties as ‘EU-only’ agreements, only to be ratified in the European Parliament and concluded by the Council. Not only do the people of Europe have no say or ‘right to know’ – nor even do national parliaments.

What we do know, however, are the lessons from recent history. As Saskia Sassen, who has looked at this question for decades, points out: time and again, when global corporations gain rights through free trade deals, citizens lose out – in large part through a negative boomerang effect of job losses and wage stagnation that cheaper goods just don’t compensate for.

We also know that it’s farcical of the European Commission to try and claim that Europe’s citizens cannot have a say in this process because the treaty will have “no legal effect” on citizens. Grist to the mill of UKIP and others – as if they needed it.

So, how will we proceed with the ECI campaign? We will not be ending our protest just because the European Commission wants to gain time with an unfounded and politically motivated rejection.

Democracy arises through social intervention and participation in the political process; it is not something to be granted or denied by Brussels. That is why in early October, we launched an unofficial self-organised European Citizens’ Initiative.

The European Commission is trying to ignore us. We will ignore the European Commission. And this morning we – the Stop TTIP coalition laid down our challenge to the Commissions’ decision at the European Court of Justice.

Mary Fitzgerald is Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy. Before joining oD she worked for Avaaz, the global campaigning organisation, and is a former Senior Editor of Prospect Magazine. She has written for the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and others. Follow her on Twitter @maryftz

Michael Efler is a member of the citizens´ committee of the ECI Stop TTIP.

For more information please visit: Stop TTIP.

To sign the unofficial Citizens Initiative please visit: Stop TTIP.

Also on The Ecologist:

‘Lawsuit served on Commission for blocking TTIP challenge‘.

‘TTIP threatens EU nations with corporate weapons of mass destruction‘ by Kevin Albertson.

This article was originally published on Open Democracy with additional reporting also from Open Democracy.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged agreement, challenging, citizens, commission, Ecologic, european, ttip, unlawful on 11/11/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

TTIP – challenging the European Commission’s unlawful intransigence Updated for 2026

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Well, thanks to some encouraging ruckus in the last few months, you may actually have heard of TTIP: the anodynely-acronymed ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’.

In plain English, it’s a massive trade deal between the EU and North America which could affect everything from healthcare choices to government banking regulations to the air we breathe. (And it gets better, TPP is the US-Asia Pacific counterpart.)

Activists and even some politicians have been up in arms about one particularly nasty element of these behemoths, which together will cover almost 50% of global GDP.

That element is the proposed secret courts where, in theory, oil companies could sue governments who try to bring in green-friendly policies, tobacco companies could challenge advertising restrictions, and private healthcare providers could pick apart what’s left of national health services. To name a few.

Don’t mention the deal behind the curtain

But in truth, we just don’t know what TTIP will mean because the negotiations are happening in secret. And the European Commission has made a mockery of its own European Citizens’ Initiative, whereby citizens are supposed to be able to register dissent.

Last September it refused to ‘allow’ that dissent to be registered – a spectacular own goal because, in making it so plain that this supposedly democratic mechanism is toothless, it paved the way for a challenge in the courts – filed this morning in the European Court of Justice.

Stop TTIP – an alliance counting over 250 organisations from across Europe – had tried to use the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to repeal the negotiating mandate for TTIP and not to conclude CETA – the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement.

The ECI was established with the Lisbon Treaty and was regarded as a major improvement of the “democratic life of the European Union”.

Long before requesting registration of the ECI, Stop TTIP asked for a legal pre-check of our petition text. A public servant of the Commission said that it would be no problem to get an answer.

But even after phoning and e-mailing again and again, they failed to deliver an answer. That´s why we decided to submit our request on 15 July.

The Commission’s highly questionable legalities

Then the Commission needed another two months to refuse the registration in a short letter based on two surprising arguments:

The first is that the Commission sees the mandate for an international agreement only as a preparatory act with no legal effect on citizens, and so could not be influenced by an ECI. This interpretation has no basis in the European Treaties. An ECI could request a legal act. There is no need to request a legal act with direct effect on citizens.

The second is even more disturbing. The Commission distinguishes between two forms of ECIs directed at the conclusion of an international agreement of the EU. The first one is to request positively the conclusion of an agreement. This is admissible according to the Commission.

But when an ECI – as in our case – wants to say No to the conclusion of an agreement it is not admissible because it produces no legal effect on citizens. This formalistic approach is more than questionable from a legal point of view.

‘Say want you want but it doesn’t change anything’

Politically, the argument of the Commission has a simple message: international trade agreements should be negotiated without public intervention. It is absolutely unacceptable that, after secret negotiations over which we have no influence, the European Parliament and the public are presented with a fait accompli.

The Commissions’ decision is very much in line with similar acts in the last months. For example, look at the so-called consultation on investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) in TTIP.

The retiring trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht – who denounces some TTIP critics as liars – regarded the coordinated contributions of 150,000 people to the consultation as an “attack” on the system. And shortly after the deadline of the consultation, he proudly declared the CETA negotiations as finalized.

The draft text has a chapter on ISDS almost identical to that of the consultation on ISDS in TTIP. So the Commissions’ maxim seems to be: “you can say want you want but it doesn´t change anything.”

Even national parliaments are excluded

The Commission also wants to avoid the ratification of CETA and TTIP in the national parliaments. It regards the treaties as ‘EU-only’ agreements, only to be ratified in the European Parliament and concluded by the Council. Not only do the people of Europe have no say or ‘right to know’ – nor even do national parliaments.

What we do know, however, are the lessons from recent history. As Saskia Sassen, who has looked at this question for decades, points out: time and again, when global corporations gain rights through free trade deals, citizens lose out – in large part through a negative boomerang effect of job losses and wage stagnation that cheaper goods just don’t compensate for.

We also know that it’s farcical of the European Commission to try and claim that Europe’s citizens cannot have a say in this process because the treaty will have “no legal effect” on citizens. Grist to the mill of UKIP and others – as if they needed it.

So, how will we proceed with the ECI campaign? We will not be ending our protest just because the European Commission wants to gain time with an unfounded and politically motivated rejection.

Democracy arises through social intervention and participation in the political process; it is not something to be granted or denied by Brussels. That is why in early October, we launched an unofficial self-organised European Citizens’ Initiative.

The European Commission is trying to ignore us. We will ignore the European Commission. And this morning we – the Stop TTIP coalition laid down our challenge to the Commissions’ decision at the European Court of Justice.

Mary Fitzgerald is Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy. Before joining oD she worked for Avaaz, the global campaigning organisation, and is a former Senior Editor of Prospect Magazine. She has written for the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and others. Follow her on Twitter @maryftz

Michael Efler is a member of the citizens´ committee of the ECI Stop TTIP.

For more information please visit: Stop TTIP.

To sign the unofficial Citizens Initiative please visit: Stop TTIP.

Also on The Ecologist:

‘Lawsuit served on Commission for blocking TTIP challenge‘.

‘TTIP threatens EU nations with corporate weapons of mass destruction‘ by Kevin Albertson.

This article was originally published on Open Democracy with additional reporting also from Open Democracy.

This entry was posted in Ecologic and tagged agreement, challenging, citizens, commission, Ecologic, european, ttip, unlawful on 11/11/2014 by angelo@percorso.net.

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