TTIP Has Failed Says German Economic Minister
Is the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) dead in
the water? If so it's a massive victory over the corporate power grab.
"Everything has stalled," German Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. (Photo: Garry Knight/flickr/cc)
The UK-based economic justice group Global Justice Now celebrated
Gabriel's comments. Kevin Smith, a spokesperson for the group, said:
The fact that TTIP has failed is testament to the hundreds of
thousands of people who took to the streets to protest against it, the
three million people who signed a petition calling for it to be
scrapped, and the huge coalition of civil society groups, trade unions
and activists who came together to stop it. TTIP would have resulted in a
massive corporate power grab, and sovereign democracies across the E.U.
would have been deeply compromised.
We’re still not out of the woods in terms of dealing the E.U.'s
legacy of toxic trade deals. CETA, the free trade deal between Canada
and the E.U. has already been ratified, and if the European Parliament
passes it, it will come into effect before the U.K. parliament has had
any chance to vote on it. So many of the controversial elements of TTIP
would effectively come in through the back door with CETA, and people
across Europe are already mobilizing in large numbers to stop this
attempted corporate coup just like they have done with TTIP.
