TTIP benefits big capital on both sides of the Atlantic

 

Statement of Georgos Loucaides, AKEL C.C. Press Spokesperson

AKEL C.C Press Office, 31st March 2015, Nicosia

 

The European Union is in talks with the US to draw up the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which in effect integrates the two markets and changes the world’s economic map.

Big capital is expected to benefit from this agreement; SME’s and labour rights will come under attack in order to make the market more competitive. Numerous rights in health and environmental standards will be crushed down so that uniform criteria are imposed. Countries such as Cyprus and its economy will have to face a vast range of deregulations in the market, while in Europe all that has remained from social gains and rights will be curbed. All of these developments are underway to benefit the multinational monopolies of the two sides.

Quite correctly therefore TTIP is perceived not as a negotiation between two competing trading partners, but as an attack on European and American societies by the transnational corporations, which are seeking to remove any regulatory barriers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bearing this given situation in mind, AKEL expresses its opposition to the impending agreement. AKEL has tabled the matter for discussion in the House of Representatives. We note that the government is in essence not taking a different position from the decisions of the powerful economic cycles. In various European countries a movement questioning and rejecting the transatlantic agreement has been formed. The EU refuses to listen to all the protests. AKEL calls on the government to abandon the dogma of the unbridled market as the recipe for resolving the crisis. Besides, this is the very dogma that led us to the crisis. AKEL will proceed in the period ahead to inform social organisations and agencies aiming to create a climate of awareness and resistance to this agreement and its content.