Through the TTIP, the European Commission is preparing the biggest attack on the standards, safety and health of European citizens

Together with the US government, the European Commission is preparing the biggest attack on the standards, safety and health of European citizens through the famous Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP. It will represent the European Union, entitled to negotiate on member States' behalf. 

Together with the US government, the European Commission is preparing the biggest attack on the standards, safety and health of European citizens through the famous Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP. It will represent the European Union, entitled to negotiate on member States' behalf.

We often hear that TTIP will create jobs and growth in Europe and the US, but when looking at previous experiences we find that twenty years ago NAFTA was put forward as "the deal of the century" for the US, but it is now acknowledged that it has done little to create new American jobs. In fact, a deep and comprehensive free trade area between the two most developed economic blocs in the world is certainly not just a "business for two". If a TTIP will be agreed, its repercussion will be felt long after its approval and it will have an impact on the international balance of power as we know it.

It is a common belief that one of the main reasons behind TTIP is geopolitical. In this respect, the idea of tightening the economic ties across the Atlantic in response to an external "stimulus" is not new, a similar deal was proposed in the 1960s by the US to back up economically the military power of NATO and trying to oppose the Soviet Union. While Brussels and Washington appear to speak the language of convergence, what they are actually creating is an economic bloc that will compete with the rising power of the BRICS. The "western predominance" has been challenged by China, for example, with its fast and significant growth in the last years. In this sense, TTIP and TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) would buy the west the resource it most needs: time! As a matter of fact, it is found that Chinese economy would be negatively affected if TTIP were realized and the decrease in Chinese GDP could be up to 0.7%. In case both TTIP and TPP were realized and China remained excluded, the combined damage in Chinese economy would be even higher than the one suffered with TTIP alone, and the decrease in Chinese GDP could go up to 2.3%.

Against multilateralism

Between the 90s and 2000s, the world chose the path of multilateralism. Multilateralism is indeed much more complicated to achieve, but it involves a radical change in trade relations when it succeeds. The EU is committed by treaty to the promotion of multilateralism, but by tying the two biggest economies through a bilateral trade agreement, developing countries and emerging powers remain excluded from negotiations. In this sense, a transatlantic deal will be damaging for them in many ways, starting from the removal of tariffs that will put goods from African countries entering the EU duty free on the same footing with US goods. How it will affect the stability of these countries is yet to be seen.

Contrary to the positive and nice forecast presented by those promoting this gigantic treaty, real independent studies show some rather discouraging outcomes for the EU, namely a decline in net exports of up to 2% (value of exports to GDP), and as a consequence of this, a decrease of the GDP of European countries. Not surprisingly as well, the intra-EU trade will suffer a significant decline of up to 40%.

Getting into more specific fields, such as labour market, chemicals, health, food industry, it is predicted that Europeans will be poorer, with losses of net income between 3 and 5 thousand Euros per year per family; with fewer rights, because there will be more than a million layoffs; sicker, because with TTIP GMOs, meat with hormones and also the cloned one will be legal; and less safe because we will live in a world where the Euro-American mega-bloc will be opposite to the Chinese / Russian.