Does the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), widely advertised as an economic panacea live up to the principles of democracy?

Are the purely commercial interests it upholds damaging to civil society? These questions were put to discussion at a debate organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Solidarity Bulgaria civic association.

At first glance the idea of liberalizing trade between USA and EU may sound tempting. Its propounders – the European Commission and its former President José Manuel Barroso - contend that it will boost economic growth, create more jobs and facilitate access to credit resources for small and medium sized enterprises.

According to more than 230 civic organizations from 21 EU countries which signed a petition against the Partnership, however it will actually favour big corporations and not the citizens of the old continent. The petition is available online at https://stop-ttip.org. Left wing politicians and guests to the conference also voiced concern over the character of the document. President Rossen Plevneliev took the diametrically opposite view, stating that the Partnership will boost American investments in this country. A serious discussion on what the signing of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and USA means to Bulgaria is yet to take place.

MEP and member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party Georgi Pirinski:

“The focus put on the democratic response and the democratic aspect of the Partnership, is without doubt central to the whole discussion. As we all know, this Partnership has the ambition of formulating globally-sounding norms.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labour and Social Policy Ivailo Kalfin spares no criticism:

“The European Commission has calculated that the annual effect for Europe’s economy will be around EUR 130 billion or a growth of around 1 percent, and for the American economy – around EUR 90 billion. The economies of both the EU and USA are comparatively closed with a restricted amount of interaction with the outside world. For integration to be successful, the two economies have to be more or less homogenous, with a similar level of development.”

The shortened deadlines the negotiations are progressing at have also been triggering much criticism among European citizens. Officially the TTIP negotiations kicked off in July 2013 with the seventh round ending on October 3, but information is scarce. Many harbour doubts that the Partnership will be signed on time, i.e. by the end of 2015.

Despite the urgency to finalize the TTIP there are at least four serious spheres of discussion in which the EU and USA are unable to reach agreement. The USA does not agree to the liberalization of its financial markets whereas the EU is not willing to accept the elimination of the mechanisms protecting local production and “geographical indication” such as French champagne for example. Europe is opposed to the US demand for a liberalization of the access to personal data and to the US-proposed investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) which are referred to a specialized court of international trade. That is the reason why the European Commission was compelled to initiate an internal discussion.

The concerns of the civic organizations stem from the fact that a claim can be filed at the Court of Arbitration by the investor and not the state which is usually the losing side and the fines it has to pay come from taxpayers’ money.

According to software expert Georg Touparev, member of the Greens political party management board, who lives in the Netherlands, the TTIP mechanisms for settling trade disputes may bring about an unprecedented situation whereby in order to meet the claims of major investors, citizens’ access to social sectors such as education, healthcare and culture will be restricted. Petar Klissarov from the Direct Democracy political party says that if the TTIP is signed as it now stands this will carry a real risk of wiping out regulation in spheres like the environment, healthcare, education, personal data protection, social policy. “This will mean an end to the model of representative democracy and the world’s advancement to a global model dominated by economic interest,” he says.

English: Milena Daynova