TTIP Food Rules Secretly Enforced in EU; Agenda 21-Style Sustainability in New Draft

Two recent stories published in Europe reveal that leaders of countries participating in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are secretly enforcing the agreement’s provisions and approving backroom deals with powerful multinational corporations whose interests are served by the secret arrangements. What’s worse: It seems that Agenda 21 is lurking in the latest version of the agreement.

 

On October 17, The Guardian reported:

 

EU negotiators will resume controversial trade talks with the US on Monday amid claims that multinational companies have jumped the gun in advance of any agreement to import goods that are currently banned — including genetically modified crops and chemically washed beef — into European markets.

 

A campaign group says that a report in a US journal concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks show that Europe is already capitulating to huge pressure from the US to allow imports of previously banned goods before an agreement is reached.

 

Just one day later, the blog Common Dreams reported on a similar acceleration of the TTIP standards in advance of the agreement’s approval by lawmakers in Europe and the United States, asserting that despite significant pressure among Europeans to slow or scrap the sovereignty-sapping trade pact, American negotiators are pressuring their continental counterparts to play ball or else:

 

US officials successfully used the prospect of TTIP to bully the EU into abandoning plans to ban 31 dangerous pesticides with ingredients that have been shown to cause cancer and infertility.

 

A similar fate befell regulations around the treatment of beef with lactic acid. This was  banned in Europe because of fears that the procedure was being used to conceal unhygienic practices. The ban was repealed by MEPs in the European Parliamentary Environment Public Health and Food Safety Committee after EU Commission officials openly suggested TTIP negotiations would be threatened if the ban wasn’t lifted.

 

It’s not hard to see why the U.S. trade representatives would be anxious to get the EU diplomats back to the TTIP table.

 

As this reporter noted in June, the vote on a crucial package of TTIP amendments was delayed after successful efforts by opponents to stall the massive surrender of sovereignty wrapped in a trade deal.

 

A statement published that day by the U.K. Independent Party (UKIP) shed light on the real reason for the parliamentary push-back:

 

Today Nigel Farage, MEP and leader of UKIP, said:

 

“In my 17 years as an MEP I’ve never received so much communication from the public on a proposed piece of legislation. The TTIP has concerned millions of people across the European Union. They have bombarded their MEPs with phone calls, letters and emails and in response to this the EU is now running scared. They’ve got the wind up, particularly the left, who have been supporting TTIP from the start and finally have been exposed as backing large scale global corporatism.

 

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