Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

These barriers are in reality, given that most tariffs between the EU and USA are already at minimal levels, some of our most prized social standards and environmental regulations such as labour rights, food safety rules, and the regulation of the use of toxic chemicals. In addition to this deregulation agenda, TTIP also seeks to create new markets by opening up public services and government procurement contracts to competition from transnational corporations. Most worryingly of all, TTIP seeks to grant foreign investors a new right to sue sovereign governments directly before ad hocarbitration tribunals for the loss of profits resulting from public policy decisions. The investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, elevates transnational capital to a status virtually equivalent to that of a sovereign state and threatens to undermine the most basic principles of democracy in the EU. TTIP is therefore not a mere negotiation process between two competing trading blocs but an attempt by transnational capital to open up and deregulate markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

The treaty has been negotiated under conditions of the strictest secrecy since 2013. Significantly there is absolutely no evidence that the absence of an ISDS limits foreign investment. Brazil, which is Latin America's largest recipient of foreign investment, has no investment agreement that contains such a clause. Indeed, the USA has no ISDS agreement with China, which continues to receive massive investment flows. In my opinion, the path to recovery does not lie through more deregulation and the lowering of social and environmental standards. The risk assessment carried out by the Centre for Economic Policy Research which was financed by the European Commission claims a benefit for this of €119 billion a year. However, at the same time it goes on to reveal that such gains, if they exist, will only be felt in 2027 and only if a comprehensive agreement is reached, which is not realistic.

The report commissioned by the Commission also confirmed that TTIP is likely to bring prolonged and substantial dislocation to the EU workforce. In recognition of this, the Commission has advised countries to draw on the Structural Fund to make up for what will happen. Among the most serious implications and dangers of TTIP is the dispute mechanism, which I have mentioned. It will also reduce the standards with regard to food imports. The US Government has explicitly used the TTIP negotiations to target EU regulations that block American food imports. These regulations rely on the precautionary principle that has been mentioned by many Deputies and I do not need to repeat it. The American negotiators seek to reverse that precautionary principle. The TTIP will lead to the downgrading of any labour standards identified as barriers to trade, such as collective labour agreements, which could be seen as challenging restrictions on the business model. I believe that layer by layer, a powerful machine has been constructed for weakening the capacity of a government to regulate in the public interest. In the context of the discussion later today on climate change, it is particularly significant that this agreement makes absolutely no provision for climate change.

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