Commissioner Malmström travelled to Spain with the intention of lecturing devoted defenders of the TTIP

In case anyone had not heard thanks to the wide broadcast on the mass media of the visit the European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström last March 6 to Spain, I have had the nerve to gather in a single article on the TTIP promotional activity among its devotees.

I must admit that Commissioner Malmström is making a huge effort briefing of her devoted followers to ensure they are able to repeat the mantras generated by the European Commission if, in the near future, there was an open media discussion by the Spanish masses on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement, TTIP and at least have a seemingly reasonable basis for argument and are not engaged, as usual, in improvising arguments at the last minute that often go from the ridiculous to the directly false.

In this article, I include the appearance of Commissioner Malmström before the Joint Committee (Congress / Senate) for the European Union in matters of economy and competitiveness that was, like most of her discourses, a cakewalk.

Honestly, as a Spanish citizen, I felt shame hearing our representatives showing little knowledge of TTIP and reducing their participation to topics without going into matters of substance, which is most likely would had forced the Commissioner to give more and better explanations on transparency, regulatory cooperation, GMOs, impact on public services, the impact of deregulation of the financial system in the chapter on Investment, and so on.

While I understand that the pro-TTIP parties, who have their hands full learning the arguments generated by the Commission, this does not apply to those parties that in a case such as the PSOE, seem to want to eat and drink, or those against the motion who were unable to embarrass Commissioner Malmström.

I do not want to reduce the article to a mere compilation of content on the Trade Commissioner's trip, while it is necessary to know in this case Spanish arguments based on the European Commission, it would not be enough. Therefore, I will quickly add some counterarguments that can serve as reference for understanding how weak, manipulated and deceptive are the reasons of those who defend the advantages and benefits of TTIP.

Does the TTIP generate GDP growth in Europe?

The European Commission has believed from the outset that providing raw data on GDP growth would be enough to convince citizens that the TTIP Agreement is enough to arrest the steady decline of European economies caused by the economic crisis. What she did not count on was that the data provided by the studies commissioned by the Commission would be spelt out to and studied by citizens.

This study of data from the studies commissioned by the Commission indicates that the impact of TTIP in the European economy would be a GDP growth of between 0.49% and 3%. The only thing they forgot to mention was that growth would be over 15 years rather than annually.

So that would mean the most beneficial thing, the growth estimated at 0.49% of GDP, would only be 0.03% of annual GDP growth of the European Union.

In the worst case of 0.3%, this growth would be in just 0.02% annual increase in GDP.

So that we may be clear on statistics, I will take the Spanish GDP as an example. In this case, the impact of GDP growth in Spain would be, in the best case scenario, 300 million Euros and in the worst case, 200 million Euros GDP growth per year.

To make it even more clear, the impact of TTIP on GDP growth in Spain would be less than what it will cost to rescue a small bank, such as Bank Madrid, which will be 500 million Euros, more than twice the impact of the TTIP on the growth of Spain.

The conclusion is that the impact of the TTIP on GDP growth in Europe would be irrelevant and could even become negative if the ideal stage on which we have calculated the impact suffered the slightest change.

In the image below, we can see the data for GDP growth and increased exports in the studies commissioned by the European Commission on the impact of TTIP to Ecorys, CEPR and CEPII.