TTIP a deal "designed by and for corporations" which threatens to dismantle European social and environmental safeguards
Friday 27th March 2015, Dublin.
Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan has said today that the European Affairs Committee must break with their record so far and properly grill Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, chief EU negotiator for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, when she appears before the Joint Committee on European Affairs later today. The Green Party has made several criticisms of the overall treaty negotiations thus far, and strongly opposes the Irish Government's approach towards the trade deal.
Speaking this morning, Ryan said: "So far the Government TDs on the European Affairs Committee have done the Irish people a complete disservice. Anyone who has watched the hearings will have realised that it is clear that the Government have already made their mind up and instructed their TDs to take a light-touch approach when it comes to questioning those in favour of TTIP.
"They could break with this trend today by finally putting some hard-hitting questions to Commissioner Malmström and getting the answers that the Irish people want to hear. Campaigners and citizens across Europe are mobilising against this trade deal - a petition of 1.6 million signatures has already been sent to the European Commission opposing it. The Committee should acknowledge and respect that demonstration of people power.
"This is a deal designed by and for global corporations, and the Labour Party in particular need to get their act together and realise what they're signing up to.
"The Investor State dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions as currently designed are a disastrous surrender of Irish sovereignty to corporate interests. They threaten us with lower food standards, fracking in rural Ireland, and intervention by multinational corporations in our health and education sectors.
"We already know that 92% of those involved in the consultations have been corporate lobbyists. Of the 560 lobby encounters that the Commission had, 520 were with business lobbyists and only 26 (4.6%) were with public interest groups. This means that, for every encounter with a trade union or consumer group, there were 20 with companies and industry federations.
"In Ireland especially we know how important trade is for economic development and our prosperity. However, this is not the way forward. Europe needs an entirely new model of economic development, and TTIP couldn't be further from that goal. It is a dangerous precedent that will empower corporations to dismantle European social and environmental safeguards, and the Irish Government need to use this opportunity to find out what's really going on."
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
For those who wish to watch the light-touch approach Government TDs are taking towards the TTIP negotiations, it will be live streamed via
www.oireachtas.ie at 2.15pm in Committee Room 2.
For further information about TTIP, see this website resource:
www.ttip2015.eu