I have gathered here everything I have said about the Grand Marché Transatlantique over the past eight years, but also everything that has been done by my party, the Left Party. You will find here excerpts from blog notes, leaflets, brochures, videos, explanations of votes in the European Parliament... So many tools that I have used for eight years to talk about this project that the powerful are preparing in the backs of peoples.
Questions from Europe: the Great Transatlantic Market Video from Left TV | Are we all going to become Americans? Guest of the show “C’est ça l’Europe?! » |
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2015
2016
We are interested in the Irish NO
Blog post from June 9, 2008
It is not because PRS has committed itself through a physical presence on the spot, in meetings in Ireland, through its main leaders (but I am so proud of it!) that I feel so involved by the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. I think this is a new key moment in the political drama unfolding in Europe. So I did not understand why Benoit Hamon on “France inter” in the morning refused to answer the question “should the Irish vote no? in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Prudence and cunning are not in order on this subject. Even to facilitate the big and small internal maneuvers of the PS congress. Especially not for that! And especially not like that, keeping a low profile in view of I don't know what compromise between beautiful people from the PS. The compromise we made at the Le Mans congress on this subject. Where have the promises of synthesis led us? To the betrayal of the Congress of Versailles! We were tricked and deceived, knowingly, I am now certain of it. So: not twice! The raw truth alone is useful to us. The referendum in Ireland is not an Irish affair. The vote of the French and the Dutch did not remain a matter confined to these two countries. If the only referendum organized on the Lisbon Treaty results in a “no”, then the meaning of this vote will be European in scope.
We must therefore honestly say what we want and what we think: the Irish must vote no. It must be said and it must be said why this Europe, that of the Lisbon Treaty, is condemned to lead the continent to political and social disaster. The left of the PS has absolutely nothing to gain by keeping a low profile in this affair as on any aspect of the European file. None of the reasons for the French and Dutch “no” has lost its relevance. On the contrary. And nothing in the blindness of the Eurobean elites, nothing in the topicality of the "more liberal you die" directives, andnothing in the future projects of the Union towards the formation of a large transatlantic market indicates any hope that anything can evolve positivelyto anything other than what we already have in front of us. The question is no longer asked whether the people will endure it for long but when everything will go to shreds of disgust and indifference against a backdrop of national tensions. As between French and Spanish fishermen, as between workers and managers of EADS in the workshops in France and Germany. And as would be the case much more broadly in public opinion if the media of reverence and certain socialist leaders did not smoke a smokescreen of European propriety for Nicolas Sarkozy when Mrs. Merkel rudely rebuffs the Mediterranean union project with hints of traditional Germanic nationalism. The Irish must vote no to officially delegitimize this absurd process that is called the European Union of the Lisbon Treaty. You have to read to believe it the newspaper “Le Monde” of Sunday June 8, highlighting on the front page “the concern that is winning over the twenty-seven”, becoming on page eight “the threat of an Irish no to the Lisbon Treaty panics the 'Europe' with arguments that smack of the propagandist rout of May 2005. And one should not miss in the same issue the unheard-of, but very German, interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, castigating the 'madness of the referendums', ' companies with selfish logic” and castigating in advance Gordon Brown who, in the event of an Irish “no” “will return to the niche” and who denounces the “politics” in progress in the Czech Republic on the subject. In the same state of mind of insulting and dramatizing one-upmanship, the three journalists who provide the background paper criticize "the Eurosceptic President of the Czech Republic" for "letting the threat of a referendum hover rather than through parliamentary provided for in the Constitution”. And to conclude on the traditional nightmare of the end of the world in the event of an Irish “no”: “the priorities displayed by Paris – energies, environment, defence, immigration, agriculture – could be put under a bushel so as not to provoke the Irish further. . All in the context of a depressed Europe, again plunged into a deep crisis”. This infantilizing treatment of the question asked is only equaled by the no less traditional casualness of the political elites, here Irish, sure of their way to the point of having been able to declare, as the Prime Minister himself did... that he hadn't read the treaty… Decidedly, for our dignity as adult and responsible citizens, we deserve that the Irish people vote “no” for us.
“Total opposition to the European policy of building a Greater Transatlantic Market”
Communiqué of August 27, 2008
In just three weeks, motions will be tabled for a socialist congress that will be decisive in the history of the left. The drafting of these motions must therefore not be improvised haphazardly by secret arrangements and last-minute tactical coalitions. After having met regularly and after reading our respective contributions, we have noted the depth of our convergences on the essential themes that must be decided by the Socialist Congress.
We have therefore decided to start the process of drafting a joint motioncapable of representing the point of view of the left of the party in this congress. It will be organized around essential markers against the renunciations and half measures that have made the socialist point of view inaudible and often unacceptable by the popular left.
Our first objective is to prevent the PS from becoming a "democratic party"as it has become in many European countries, before sometimes turning into a centrist party like in Italy, at the price of a total disappearance of the parliamentary left.
For this we want to propose to the PS to refocus on the themes that form its historical identity:
1° Peace, and therefore the break with followership with regard to the American government, the policy of the clash of civilizations and NATO. This point obviously implies total opposition to the European policy of building the “Great Transatlantic Market”. It includes the commitment for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.
2° We are the partisans of another mode of social organization, in the tradition of the socialist ideal. In this perspective, we want to initiate an overhaul of the distribution of wealth, which allows labor to recover the 10 points of national wealth that have passed from its pockets to those of capital for 20 years. Salaries, pensions, public services, we must reverse the current line.
3° The questioning of the dominant production model and therefore the establishment of a real ecological planning of the development of our country.
4° The complete and total break with the current model of European construction. This implies stopping the process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and fighting for a Europe where the law is made by and for the citizens.
5° We want to learn from the revival of the left in Latin America, rather than from Northern Europe where the sinking of social democracy is consummated. For us, the republican rebuilding of our country cannot be separated from our social objectives. We want to offer the French people a 6th parliamentary republic, firmly secular and social.
All of this is of course only possible if the Socialist Party is totally clear about its strategy of alliances.Gathering a majority of French people to accomplish this program cannot be done in the confusion of political agreements with a sector of the right. There can therefore be no question of making a pact with the Modem. Our alliances must be forged exclusively on the left and without excluding the extreme left.
If we want and if we propose clarity on these points,it is because all the signs are converging to show that the current runaway capitalist model is rapidly leading to an economic crisis , ecological, social and political, towards the first heartbreaks for world peace. At a time when capitalism is entering an acute crisis, the Socialist Party, to be useful to the workers and to the country, must break with its liberal superego, its centrist temptations, its partnerships in Europe with parties which govern with the right. In short, with everything that makes him a stakeholder and an active accomplice in a world order that is going wrong.
A Deregulated Large Transatlantic Market
Guest of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on April 21, 2009
On April 21, 2009, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the guest of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on RMC. He took advantage of this invitation to denounce the Grand Marché Transatlantique project and the fact that no one was hearing about it. See the video from 16:23.
The Grand Marché Transatlantique: a project behind the backs of citizens
Left Party brochure published in May 2009
In May 2009, the Parti de Gauche published an information brochure on the Greater Transatlantic Market, in the midst of the campaign for the European elections. You can consult this brochure by following this link.
Questions of Europe: the Great Transatlantic Market
Left TV video of May 28, 2009
In a video produced by Télé de Gauche, Jean-Luc Mélenchon explains the dangers of the Grand Marché Transatlantique.
“News from the great transatlantic market”
Excerpt from the note from the Europe blog “Parliament and celebrations” of September 9, 2009
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José Manuel Baroso is well on his way to adopting the North American mental scheme. The transatlantic relationship is therefore the only bilateral partnership that Barroso explicitly addresses. He even presents this partnership as a model: "cross-cutting dialogues, such as the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) with the United States, our main trade and investment partner, are an effective way of structuring relationships with major trading partners. Even if he does not directly address the Greater Transatlantic Market project, Baroso proposes to "seize the opportunity offered by the change in the international environment to deepen strategic partnerships with our main bilateral partners, such as the United” which is again the only country specifically mentioned. When I asked him if he was maintaining the goal of a deregulated space with the United States for 2010, he looked preoccupied like someone who doesn't like things to be summarized. Then he declared that this would not be the case in 2010. But that the development of this integration was essential for Europe and in particular through the CET (see above) in order to gradually remove the barriers that hinder trade. In short, nothing new.The lens is well maintained. But badly assumed...
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Reading workshop on the Grand Marché Transatlantique
Left Party Reading Workshop, published September 17, 2009
In 2009, the Parti de Gauche published a reading workshop to inform and alert on the challenges of the Greater Transatlantic Market. Given the format of the document, we invite you to consult it by clicking on this link.
"Intervention in the European Parliament on EU-US relations"
Blog Europe, October 21, 2009
Madam President, Commissioner, Madam Minister,
In the current economic turmoil, the newly elected Parliament has the right to up-to-date and accurate information on progress in the construction of the large transatlantic market on the economic and financial plan. Is the horizon of 2010 to 2015 for this deregulated market maintained? I think that would be a serious mistake given the state of disrepair of the fundamentals of the United States economy and its refusal to put the financial sphere in order, in addition to the principled reasons which lead me to deny that this partnership is the "cornerstone" of the Union's foreign policy, as several colleagues have declared.
With this in mind, I again ask what measures will be taken to deal with the collapse of the dollar and the risks this poses to Europe and the world. Why not seriously consider China's proposal for a common global currency for the benefit of the stability of the global economy? I want to warn against an outdated Atlanticism which is a dangerous archaism at a time when the world needs a Europe independent of the United States.
"The Baroness is getting me drunk"
Excerpt from a note from the Europe blog of January 12, 2010
I made the return trip to Brussels on Monday to take part in the hearing of Ms. Ashton, the new Vice-President of the European Commission, in charge of Foreign Affairs. She was working in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee. There was a crowd! Photographers, super hand-picked journalists, guests from other commissions in limited numbers and so on. I am the vice-president of this commission, and I was therefore one of the first speakers authorized to speak to him. One minute for me for one question and only one. Two for her to answer. Then again a minute for me to react and ask another question. And a minute for her conclusion. This is called a contradictory debate in the European Parliament. Good ! Why not.
The result was quite appalling. Let us judge.I point out to her that she said nothing about the transatlantic partnership in her opening remarks, whereas the Commission, the Council and Parliament have declared it a priority. I ask her what she intends to do for the formation of the Grand Marché Transatlantique, which the Parliament and the council have hoped will be completed by 2015. I go so far as to tell her that I do not at all support this project for him avoid overzealousness where appropriate. There are a few amused laughs. Stunning response. She says that she has never heard of this market but that she wants to confirm that the transatlantic partnership is a priority!I reply to her that I am sorry that she does not know about this project and that I refers to the many texts of the Commission, the Council and the Parliament to know it. She thanks me for sending them to her! I think she's just making fun of me! But when I ask her if she can tell me what, in her opinion, is the adversary that European troops are facing in Afghanistan, if she can name him, and tell us where we are in relation to the war aims pursued , it becomes surreal. She tells me that Europe is doing its job well and that many hospitals have been built. But “there remains a lot to do for the population”!
At this point I tell myself that in reality she knows nothing about the subjects that concern us.The following will confirm my impression.
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Explanation of the text on the EU-US aviation agreement
Blog Europe, session from June 14 to 17, 2010
What are we talking about?
The open skiesfirst stage agreementon air services between the EU and the United States entered into force on30 March 2008. It supersedes the bilateral agreements concluded by member states with the United States.By mid-2010 the open airspace is expected to be completed.
It consists of the deregulation of EU-USA air traffic (more than 60% of world air traffic):
– Generalizes a number of air traffic rights. It thus makes it possible to transport passengers and goods from a third country to the United States on a route departing from the EU, and vice versa (“5th freedom”). Similarly, European companies will be able to set up links between the United States and third countries without this link necessarily starting in the EU (“7th freedom all-cargo”).
– Free pricing and flight capacity free for air carriers between the EU and the US, which is not currently the case.
- Removal of a number of restrictions on the ownership and control of US airlines and Europeans. Reciprocity regarding rules preventing European individuals and companies from holding more than 25% of voting shares in US carriers has nevertheless been achieved.
Consequences:
– Increased competitionbetween airlines
– Increased transatlantic air traffic to the detriment of the environment
– PNR data protection(passenger travel records data collected by airlines and travel agenciesat the time of booking:passenger name; itinerary; flights (numbers , dates, times); persons registered under the same reservation number; passenger details; payment information; hotel and car reservations; requests for specific services (seat number, special meal, medical assistance)not finds no guarantees in this agreement, even though the passengers on the flights concerned are particularly concerned.
– One more step in the Greater Transatlantic Market
In March 2010, a second step was taken in the negotiations
– In the area of the environment, implementation of market-based measures (trading systems emissionscarbon market)
– In the social field, maintenance of the rights that current legislation recognizes for airline employees< br>– In the area of security, increasing the level of cooperation“to counter threats to the air transport system”
– In the area of regulation< /b>, “red tape reduction”
– Regarding market access, it will be further extended. EU carriers will have greater access to US government-funded air traffic (Fly America programme).
What does the resolution propose
Positive points:
– Note that the EU does not have a Fly America type air program (funded by the United States public authorities and allowing only restricted access to foreign investors to it). ci)
– Calls for the private data of EU citizens to be protected (refers to the European Parliament resolution of May 5th calling for binding restrictions on the use and storage of PNRs)
– Recognizes the negative effects of increased transatlantic air traffic on the environment
Negative points:
– Calls for “the total opening of the market without any restriction on the part of each of the parties”
– “welcomes the cooperation between the European and American authorities in charge of security at all levels”
– Advocates the carbon market to combat the negative effects of increased transatlantic air traffic.
I voted against this text. Here is my explanation of vote:
“The opening of the transatlantic air “market” serves the general interest. It increases competition between airlines to the detriment of employees in this sector. It increases air traffic to the detriment of the ecosystem. It does not include any real guarantee concerning the protection of personal data (PNR) that the United States registers at will to the detriment of the rights of European citizens.
This resolution this deregulation machine which is specific to all which foreshadows the future Greater Transatlantic Market. I vote against. »
My busy weekend
Excerpt from a blog post from September 17, 2010
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The European Council meeting of Thursday September 16, 2010, was richer than we learned from the mainstream media fascinated by the "muscular and virile" exchange of Messrs Sarkozy and Barroso about the expulsions of Roma . The conclusions of this Council, however, have nothing to do with the question of the Roma. What do we find there? First, a moving ode to globalization and the security policies of the EU, "the world's leading trading power" capable of "sharing responsibilities for global security" in the face of the crisis. But yes ! At a time when the peoples of Europe are suffering the most from the crisis and are being haunted by the "growing terrorist threat", there is no lack of salt! Then we find a beautiful celebration of the Lisbon Treaty “which will allow Europe to take its full weight on the international scene”. But how ? Perhaps thanks to the triumvirate that “represents” the EU, the hair-raising Barroso, Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton? No: "by securing the steps leading us to free trade agreements with our main partners" and by "maximizing the potential benefits of the transatlantic partnership". impossible to speak in France. And yet! Mazette! This partnership is enthroned "heart of the international system", just that! Finally the Council, friend of money and those who possess it, ends its prose with a great reverence for the European system of financial supervision. Die the workers! They are not the subject of the current play. Because the main objectives of the magnificent European system of financial supervision are far from them. It is for him to protect investors, savers and policyholders and to ensure "the integrity, efficiency and proper functioning" of financial markets. Close the ban. This is why Mrs. Viviane Reeding, Commissioner of I don't know what that harms people, can afford to make big remarks to Sarkozy when she represents a rogue state of finance and banks. Luxembourg ! An unreal country, singled out even by the G 20 for a few hours, before the blackmailers no doubt silenced all those who have offshore accounts in Luxembourg painted as dry as a virtuous state!
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"Coupy with the United States"
Excerpt from the analysis “Mid-term review: Jerzy Buzek throws himself flowers in the middle of the crisis”, on the Europe blog for the session from October 18 to 21, 2010
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Jerzy Buzek traveled to the United States twice, in April and June 2010 with the following objectives, at the initiative of the European Parliament:
·the building of a transatlantic legislative partnership between the European Parliament and the United States Congress.
·the creation of a transatlantic single market.
·the creation of a parliamentary assembly transatlantic
“We can and must work together to tackle the major challenges facing us on both sides of the Atlantic, whether it be climate change or energy security, the maintaining free trade or improving global governance“.
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Don't let go!
Excerpt from an interview published in the newspaper L'Opinion Indépendante of October 22, 2010
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Christian Authier: “In economic terms, you recommend relocating activities. Does this involve a certain dose of protectionism? »
Of course. It is the current free trade that is unreasonable and irresponsible. It leads to a leveling down of the social conditions of workers. The example of Ryan air demonstrates this again: the Irish boss closes his business in France, but keeps his airlines on the grounds that the social rights of the French are higher than those of the Irish…
C.A: “About the European Union, you say that it is fomenting a “great transatlantic market” with the United States. What is this big market? »
The European Commission has spoken out three times, the Parliament four times, for the creation of a large single market with the United States in 2015.Despite my warnings, I am amazed to see that this question is never mentioned or put in the public square. This economic integration with the United States is progressing month by month and I consider it dangerous for the European economy, and in particular for the French economy.The United States is the great sick body of the economy world and their irresponsible monetary behavior threatens the entire planet.
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Conference on the GMT in Namur
October 27, 2010 – Publication on the FGTB Wallone website
On October 27, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, European parliamentarian and president of the French Left Party, took part in a conference-debate organized by Cepag. On the menu: reflections on (ultra)liberal Europe and on the project of a large “transatlantic market” between the EU and the USA. At a time of French workers' fight to maintain retirement at 60, this day was also an opportunity to show that right-wing political logic can be countered by political choices... on the left!
On the way to a common market with the United States?
Researchers Ricardo Cherenti and Bruno Poncelet fueled the debate by leading the reflection on the new anti-social project of Europe. A project that almost no one knows about because no one talks about it... Hand in hand with powerful multinationals, the European Union is working to increase the liberalization of trade and financial exchanges with the United States of America. The goal is simple: create a vast free trade area, a large “transatlantic market” for… 2015!
Will we soon have hormone meat or bleached chicken on our plates? Will European workers be put in competition with American workers? Why are our personal data stored without our knowledge and transmitted to the United States? How to stop this infernal machine? There are many questions…
In his speech, Jean-Luc Mélenchon shared his vision of things: the creation of this transatlantic market is a way of enlisting the world in an authoritarian, even totalitarian way, in the capitalist and ultraliberal strategy.
Questioning the economic justification of this project, he recalled that, in a context of financialisation of the economy (on the financial markets, 168 times the value produced in the world is traded daily!), most of the wealth of the United States is not based on production but on fictitious capital. The USA therefore lives on credit and the establishment of a transatlantic market would allow them to have a certain control, a political stranglehold on trade in order to safeguard their economic model…
The direction that the large transatlantic market is taking is therefore a threat to our social rights, our economies and peace itself. A market that will not only replicate but also broaden and deepen the policies that led to the current crisis.
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Working time, pension, austerity…
More precarious employment contracts… Increasingly flexible working hours… A right to retirement postponed for several years… And all this to earn less because the markets are demanding austerity. No doubt: the world of capital puts our health, our private life and our wallet to the test.
Alongside Thierry Bodson, Secretary General of the Walloon FGTB, Jean-Luc Mélenchon shed light on these right-wing policies, insisting in particular on financial greed that the crisis (which it caused) did not in no way altered.
Against the backdrop of the social conflict over pensions in France, he recalled essential left-wing principles: reversing the poor distribution of wealth between labor and capital, the importance of pay-as-you-go pensions, tax justice, strong public services, etc.
The president of the Parti de Gauche concluded the day by warmly thanking the Belgian workers who blocked oil depots to support the actions of the French social movement.
The day after the red sofa
Excerpt from a blog post from November 9, 2010
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Without any prior public debate in France, nor consultation of Parliament, which will however have to ratify certain aspects of this agreement, the President of the Republic has just committed France to extremely extensive military cooperation with the United Kingdom. Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on the exceptional nature of this agreement: "It is an unprecedented decision which shows the degree of confidence which reigns between our two nations, unequaled in history". That's right ! And that's the problem. When and where was this turn discussed? Over the days a policy is confirmed, in general indifference. Because after the decision to join NATO's integrated command in 2008, this new leap forward towards the Anglo-Saxons worsens France's alignment with the military apparatus of the United States Empire. The United Kingdom is the flat pass of the North American system. In this case it is a British victory. Because this agreement is largely contradictory with the commitments made elsewhere in favor of "Europe of Defense". An illusion more than ever without effect ends up dying. The France of the rights which will gargle this week with the memory of General De Gaulle is in the process of turning the page on the “all-out” military independence that he had constituted. I do not agree at all with this new de facto doctrine of a Franco-English defense, that is to say, in my eyes Franco-American, integrated.
The agreement signed by Nicolas Sarkozywith David Cameron comprises three main parts: a cooperation treaty, a specific treaty on the joint nuclear installations that have been decided on, a letter of intent from ministers defense of both countries. There is total silence on one point. No reference to any global disarmament policy or the goal of reducing nuclear arsenals. The intention is clearly not to go in this direction. The Treaty provides for 13 very varied areas of cooperation. In terms of method, the common point of all these areas is the concern to pool resources. The argument is to reduce the expenditure of each country, while continuing to strengthen and modernize military capabilities. With such reasoning where are we going? As far as the United States, of course.It is true that the objective of the Greater Transatlantic Market in 2015 overshadows all the national policies of Europeans.In most areas of cooperation, the treaty is more intentional than operational, but it is particularly so in two strategic areas. The management of nuclear arsenals and the formation of a common "expeditionary force". Nothing less.
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Between Cohn-Bendit and G20, rain of dangerous lies
Excerpt from a blog post from November 11, 2010
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On November 20, the EU-US summit will take place. This is the second since the beginning of Barack Obama's mandate. It will be held in Lisbon. On this occasion, the European Parliament is presented with a resolution. What makes this resolution remarkable is that it is signed by the right, the center but also the socialists and the Greens. The other extraordinary aspect of this moment is that it is actually three summits taking place at the same time in Lisbon. Usually these are three separate meetings in time and space. Is it a coincidence that they are joint this time? These are the NATO Summit, the European Union-United States Summit, and finally, the Meeting of the Transatlantic Economic Council, the armed wing of transatlantic capitalism.The pillars of the Greater Transatlantic Market will therefore be brought together in Lisbon.This is how President Obama wanted it. I begin by describing these three tools so that everyone can appreciate all the salt of what is included in the text of the resolution presented to the European Parliament by the quartet of disheveled Atlanticists who signed the resolution submitted to European parliamentarians in Brussels.
The EU-US Summits take place once or twice a year.It is the meeting of the main leaders of the two shores of the Atlantic: the President of the United States, the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council. It is from there that the major political orientations of the transatlantic project are endorsed and propelled. Thenthere is the Transatlantic Economic Council (CET). It is the central body for setting up the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT). This council was set up in 2007 to accelerate the liberalization of trade between the USA and the EU. Significant curiosity, this body does not include any elected European member. Only representatives of the European Commission sit on it. To do this, he relies on “transatlantic dialogues” according to the pedantic vocabulary of this kind of body which does not want to be identified too much. Among these “dialogues” is the most influential, the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), created in 1995. It brings together representatives of the most powerful US and European multinationals such as Coca Cola, Siemens and so on.
Finally, the NATO summit is also held. This one does not usually take place every year. But the pace has accelerated since the 1990s. This is the twenty-fourth meeting of Heads of State and Government of the 28 NATO member countries. It is intended to set the strategic priorities of the Atlantic Alliance. This is decisive for world peace insofar as NATO is the only military imperialism in the world and it is in fact a coalition of vassals around the American imperium. I remind you that the USA alone spends as much as all the other military budgets in the world. And six times the military expenditure of China equaled by itself the France-Great Britain tandem. This Summit must in particular endorse the desire for “partnership” with Russia as recommended by the “group of wise men” around Madeleine Albright. It's not nothing. It must also affirm NATO's new raison d'être. There will be studied topics such as securing the energy supply of its members. The Russian partner will have ringing ears. It will be hot, if I dare say. American troops, mercenaries and their allies in NATO's integrated command will redouble their efforts on the route of current and future pipelines and gas pipelines.
What does the Joint Resolution of the Right, Socialists and Greens propose?Let's see what is positive, to be fair. The text “Once again invites the government of the United States to ratify and accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”. Which makes it possible to remember that such is not the case with this dear American champion of human rights in the world. The resolution “Reiterates its call for the universal abolition of the death penalty”. New helpful reminder to keep in mind when pointing to other countries. And it is also asked for “better representation of the unions at the Transatlantic Economic Council”. In fact there is none! I also note that the quartet “shows its concern with regard to the use of cloning in animal breeding”. In this kind of accumulation of pious wishes, an incongruity always ends up happening. This is the case once again. The text calls on "European and American leaders as well as the co-chairs of the TEC to take into account the essential role of legislators for the success of the TEC". Amazing. We almost thought that the signatories had completely forgotten that they were concerned... The request is nonetheless remarkably timid! Parliamentarians humbly ask that the elected representatives of the American and European peoples be able to give an opinion. An opinion ! Finally, a good deed that costs nothing. The text “requests that industrialized countries respect their commitments and allocate 0.7% of their GDP to official development assistance by 2015”.
After that, here is what the right, the Greens and the socialists sign together.It is especially negative. First a sermon preached in the usual neo-colonialist accents. The resolution explains that “the European Union and the United States are working together around the world to defend a common cause based on shared history, culture, interests and values”. What are we talking about? Everyone can put whatever they want in it. What matters is that our common identity is suggested as opposed to that of “others”. This is the crux of the thesis of the clash of civilizations, dear to this good Mr. Huntington, for whom everything begins with the fact that everyone realizes that reality is “us and the others”. After this questionable manifesto comes a self-celebration which is just as questionable, in the context of the North American bankruptcy.The text of the right, the Greens and the socialists considers that "the dynamism and the attachment to the cause of the transatlantic relationship are all the more important in the current context of global financial and economic crisis”.Words hide one behind the other. Here you learn that there is a “transatlantic cause”. A rich eco-social ideal! And this is how we come to a profession of faith which I continue to find extraordinary that it is never discussed publicly in France.The resolution proclaims: "the European Parliament continues to plead in favor of the completion of a transatlantic market by 2015, the completion of which, alongside the completion of the single market of the European Union, will constitute an essential factor in reviving global economic growth and recovery” .I keep denouncing this scandal. A single market will be formed over the next five years between the USA and the European Union with the support of right-wing and center-left elites who run everything and everyone without a single word being said to the citizens.< /b>
And as if that weren't enough, here is our comfort left barking happily with its masters.The text they sign together dares to say: "convinced that the Transatlantic Economic Council is the most appropriate instrument for managing transatlantic economic relations”. This even then, as I pointed out earlier, that there is not a single parliamentarian in this Council! Having reached this point of debasement, the rest of the infamies of the text pass banally. Thus he welcomes the EU-USA "Open Skies" Agreement and "invites the authorities of the United States and the Commission to work in favor of greater freedom of investment and greater air carriers on both sides of the Atlantic. The text “pronounces for the diversification of supply routes in order to improve the security of energy supply”. And looks at biofuels when it comes to diversifying energy sources… And the best part remains to be read for environmentalists. Because the resolution invites the USA to "work towards cooperation with this country by promoting the establishment of closer links between the Union's emissions trading system and the regional or federal trading systems set up in the United States" and "notes in this regard the importance of ensuring common standards and assessment criteria for all emerging markets in terms of emissions trading, in order to avoid regulatory obstacles in this emerging market. Breathe! That's it, it's over. Go one more dose and it's over. The text “Welcomes the SWIFT agreement”. I pass the rest so as not to inflict too many technical lengths on you. The essentials have been said.The Grand Marché Transatlantique project is progressing rapidly. The right loves it. The Socialists and the Greens zealously cover the operation. All this little world is silent as soon as they return to France.Europe protects us against knowing its turpitudes.
The United States is the source of the essential dangers of our time.I have described at length, in my penultimate note, the explosive situation created by the runaway dollar-making machine. whose value absolutely no longer rests on any material consideration. March 18, 2009 is the new date symbolizing the period opened by the freedom taken by the USA to buy back the titles of their own debt. This is the second stage of a movement that began on August 11, 1971 when President Nixon decided that the dollar no longer had a gold counterpart as it had until that day. Last week, the USA carried out a massive debt buyback operation for the second time. Second massive dose of a deadly drug. I will not go back to what I have already described on this subject and that we can go and read. I only come back to show how my thesis is illustrated according to whichour country and Europe have no interest in remaining moored any longer to the sinking ship that is the USA.The signs of this loss are obviously the gradual decline in real production in the USA. I read the other day in the course of an economic analysis an absolutely astounding demonstration of a drug addict of the economy of permanent credit such as the practice in the USA. A hundred percent twisted reasoning. We read there that the mass of money injected by the USA, of course, does not give a direct result since everything starts in the bubble and speculation. But, said the author, it does not matter, because stock market prices start to rise. Which has indeed been verified. And if stock market prices increase, he said, even for speculative reasons, it is the wealth of households that own these securities that increases. So that reassures them. Morale improves. And their ability to borrow to consume increases since their wealth grows on its own. And hop, pass nutmeg, the game of Monopoly continues. Between the thirteenth and tenth floor, the man who falls into the void can say: “for the moment nothing too serious”.
It is this threat that is the background to the G20 summit this weekend in Seoul. It is a figment of the imagination to read the current crisis as a confrontation between Chinese and Americans. It is the struggle between those who mop up the bogus paper of the USA and the latter that gives meaning to what is happening. . The rest is the series of direct and indirect consequences of this initial cause. Whatever happens, of course, the meeting in Seoul should give the impression that the situation is "now" completely under control. As the financial crisis deepens, the number of poultices laid on the rotten wooden leg of the global system will be highlighted. It is pleasant to learn from the newspaper “Le Monde” that the first task of the G20 “will be to convince its members to closely monitor their macroeconomic imbalances, for example the solidity of their debt”. One wonders what this could consist of when it comes to the USA. The second theme, we are told, will be that of the governance of the IMF. Too funny ! This non-democratic institution is “rebalancing itself”. Translation: the Europeans transfer part of their quotas and their voting rights. Just 6%. But the United States does not move an inch and its right to veto decisions remains intact. Bravo for the democratization reform attributed by its French supporters to Strauss-Kahn, the director of the IMF. The rest is flute. A chatter is planned on development aid and climate change and a voodoo session to unsettle the deadly offensive of the WTO and its president Pascal Lamy. The big thrill will be the moment of the validation of the decisions concerning the functioning of the financial system. To better withstand crises, banks will have to increase their ratio of real funds (if this adjective has any meaning in this universe) in relation to their outstanding loans. In order to be able to lend a hundred each, they will have to have eight in hand. The bankers are screaming. We were dismayed. How do you respond to losing 92 euros with 8 euros in your pocket? The advantage of the discussion is that it will make it possible to list the banks which, because of their size, if they were to default, would bring the global system down. Among them: BNP and Société Générale. The bad news is that these are the ones we know. The good news is that these are the ones we know and have on hand. So part of the wall of money is within reach of the citizen revolution pickaxe. Notice to amateurs who would look for lice in our heads when the time comes.
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"Send them away!" "Kick them out!" »
Excerpt from a blog post from November 24, 2010
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Portugal, next victim? In serious budgetary difficulty, the country is also strongly attacked by the “markets”. Why would they deprive themselves of it? On Wednesday, November 10, during an issue of 1.2 billion euros, the Portuguese state was forced by the vampires to raise the rates of its 6 and 10-year bonds to levels never reached before. The 10-year rates fell from 6.2% during the previous issue to 6.8%. If confirmed, this rise in rates will be enough to put to the ground the budgetary austerity plan adopted by Portugal at the cost of a VAT increase and cuts in the salaries of civil servants. On Saturday November 13, the Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado even considered in the weekly "Expresso", Portugal's exit from the euro if the country does not achieve a national union for new economy measures: "the alternative to the current situation would be to finally leave the euro. This is a situation that can be imposed on us by the markets.” Hum! It's a tough threat. Too rough to be honest.
Because Portuguese socialists are no more patriotic than their congeners in other countries.For them the laws of the market and other liberal dogmas are more important than any other reality. When they renounce the sovereignty of their country and accept to obey proconsuls in notary vests like the Strauss-Kahn boys of the IMF, they do not have the impression of betraying the heart of the democratic ideal. What they see when they obey, they do not experience it as a drama because for them it is only realism, “the only possible policy” and so on. The new betrayal of the peoples has the face of an absolute good conscience that makes us lose sight of any sense of human responsibility towards the people who undergo the remedies of Diafoirus from this team of skinners.
I must say that these speculations against the Nation-States do not seem to me to be guided only by the appetite for profit and the usual banking greed. These motivations are there and indeed there. But I suspect something else. I know that the United States of America has an interest in the pulverization of the euro zone. On the one hand, it gives the dollar a central place since it has no equivalent. This is a decisive element in countering the current flight from bogus American money. Secondlyit is a useful preparation for the establishment of the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT) under the domination of greenbacks, which we will thus be called upon to validate.
The suspicions are based on curious coincidences.In the Greek case, the hand of the United States is visible. Several large American banks have advised Greece in the management of its debt: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Merill Lynch, Morgan Stanley. It was Goldman Sachs that played the main role by pretending to help Greece get into debt and then helping to put it down. From 2001, Goldman Sachs helped Greece disguise part of its debt by using derivatives. In particular by playing on the currencies which brought in 300 million dollars in commissions to Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs also served as an intermediary for the Greek state to place its debt securities on non-European markets, particularly in China. Then, from 2010, Goldman Sachs speculated against Greek debt. She was obviously using her good knowledge of the reality of Greek debt. The bank therefore bet on the surge of its default insurance, CDS, and speculated shamelessly on the rise in Greek bond rates. Goldman Sachs is throwing oil on the fire of the Irish and Portuguese crises. On November 10, Goldman Sachs was one of the first players to call for a rescue plan for Ireland and Portugal, although on that date neither these countries nor any EU leader had mentioned it. This call amplified speculation against these debts and soaring rates. Still in the role of panic, the chief economist of Goldman Sachs affirmed in a note widely taken up by the media that the European Commission had secretly met Portugal during the weekend of November 13-14 to prepare a rescue plan. Nothing like breaking up a country.
Goldman Sachs is the American investment banking giantwith $30 billion in revenue. Goldman Sachs is closely linked to successive US governments through its former leaders. Bush Finance Secretary Henry Paulson, who bailed out the banks, was formerly CEO of Goldman Sachs. The bank also received $10 billion in public funds during the bailout of the US banking sector. It was also the first private contributor to Barack Obama's campaign with nearly a million dollars in donations made by its leaders. The revelation of the role of Goldman Sachs in the subprime crisis and its collaboration with Madoff momentarily tarnished its image. And yet, the bank was recycling bad debts into derivative products. She placed them massively on the market. Then, with full knowledge of what those securities contained, she then speculated against them knowing that they were rotten. But the bank managed to get the government to drop the fraud charges against the $550 million compensation payment. Minus the winnings, remains a superb economic crime bounty. The bank continues to be present in the Obama administration, through Mark Patterson, current Chief of Staff to Finance Minister Timothey Geithner. He himself was a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs. And then there's Gary Gensler, who was the bank's chief financial officer. He now heads one of the main US stock market regulatory agencies, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, responsible for regulating derivatives markets.
This influence will not diminish. Goldman Sachs has just placed one of its own in the IMF to take care of Europe! Indeed DSK has just appointed as head of the European department of the IMF, Antonio Borges, who was from 2000 to 2008 one of the leaders of the London subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, responsible for developing the bank's activities in Europe. And Antonio Borges was specifically responsible for representing the American bank in its relations with governments and institutions in Europe, a role in which he had to closely follow the manipulations of the bank in the Greek crisis. Nobody can make us believe that these people arrange themselves haphazardly and that they do not know what they are doing by acting in concert. That's not all. Goldman Sachs also has one of its former executives on the ECB Governing Council. This is Mario Draghi, Governor of the Bank of Italy. He was Vice-President Europe of Goldman Sachs from 2002 to 2005. He was therefore also closely involved in the risky arrangements of the bank in Greece. This did not prevent him from being chosen by the G20 to chair the Financial Stability Forum which oversees financial market reforms. It's like that ! Currently, Mario Draghi is also in competition with the German Axel Weber to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet at the head of the ECB. So we know what to expect.
This is not the only direct entry point for the United States in the European crisis.The role of American rating agencies is central. Two Wall Street rating agencies, Standard and Poor's and Moody's, control 80% of the global ratings market. By rapidly lowering their ratings against Greece, they increased its financing difficulties and fueled speculation on CDS. It should be noted that the operation directly served the American banks with which these same agencies work. Ruthless with Greece, Standard and Poor's and Moody's have been much less so in other circumstances. Thus they had covered until the end Lehmann Brothers or Enron, whose triple A rating they had maintained until the dawn of their bankruptcies. Moody's successively downgraded Ireland's rating in July 2009, July 2010 and announced a rating "watch" in October 2010, hinting at a further downgrade. For its part, Standard and Poor's downgraded Ireland's rating three times from March 2009 to September 2010, and also announced at the end of September 2010 that it was placed under watch, preparing for a further downgrade of the rating which kills. This bundle of interested presences shows that ratings and loans operations have nothing to do with the objective assessment of the facts in which we are led to believe. All stakeholders are part of a global system which none of the parameters can leave them indifferent insofar as they are direct protagonists.The heart of the game that is played is not Europe but the dollar . It all comes down to it and you have to think about everything, considering that everything is a balance of power and a great danger for the world because of the Americans who dominate it.
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Strauss-Kahn and the socialist scam
Excerpt from a blog post from December 3, 2010
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For DSK, it is the reduction in working hours that is the cause of unemployment. “Europe today has a serious growth problem,” he says. It's certain ! Perhaps the insane policies of contraction of demand imagined by this little genius? No! Read. “Europe’s standard of living has stopped improving for one key reason: citizens are not living up to their potential. This reflects a conscious social choice to work less. There is nothing problematic in that; after all happiness doesn't just come from income. But there is a dark side. Unemployment in Europe is chronically high and labor force participation is persistently low.” Aside from the ridiculousness of the final tautology, the diagnosis remains. “A conscious social choice to work less”. Lazy! All said with the playful tone that allows false benevolence: “nothing problematic”. Then comes the seriousness. The remedy is in the style of cruelties the IMF is accustomed to. The solution, a single labor market harmonized on the model of the single market for goods and services. “To boost the reform of the labor market, it would be beneficial to launch at European level an initiative for a “single labor market”, on the model of the “single market” which harmonized the markets for goods. The Eurozone cannot reach its true potential with a bewildering patchwork of segmented labor markets.” Ah! Maybe with a European minimum wage? Or with regional Smic, as voted on many occasions by the PS when Strauss Kahn sat in its bodies? No. Nothing. The invisible hand of free and undistorted competition. Point bar. While the single market for goods has resulted in a general dumping of production conditions, DSK proposes to borrow the same regressive model for the labor market.
But this is still nothing compared to its "proposals" about national budgets.On this subject, DSK buries without hesitation the budgetary sovereignty of the people. To implement the “reform program” that it considers necessary and which would make all peoples Greeks and Irish, DSK imagines completely divesting the States of their budgetary policy. He imagines further strengthening the powers of the European Commission. He does not say a word about the democratic problem that this would pose. Does he therefore ignore the authoritarian dimension of such a political model? To go in this direction, he presents the experience of the "single market" and the "monetary union" as models: "When the agenda is driven by the center, things move forward. Look at the single market program or monetary union. But when the agenda is left to the nations, things do not move forward. See labor market and service reforms, especially via the Lisbon agenda. And he concludes: “The center must take the initiative in all key areas to assume the common future of the union, in particular in terms of financial, economic and social policy. States must be prepared to cede more authority to the center. " The center ! What a word to describe the power of the Commission! It is the same reification of power, the same disembodiment as the “organization” of the pol-potiens! A nameless and faceless entity that would decide what is good. “The mechanisms must be redefined to give them incentives for reform. Many issues revolve around budgets. »
And so that there is no doubt about the authoritarian nature of the Strauss-Kahnian conception of power,here is the exact sentence of his proposal: "The most ambitious solution would be to create a centralized budgetary authority with political independence comparable to that of the ECB. This authority would establish the budgetary framework of each State and allocate resources from a central budget to best achieve the double target of stability and growth. I invite you to read the sentence several times to fully understand and assimilate it. This man quietly proposes that an “independent” center like the ECB, beyond any political control, decide “centrally” on the distribution of sums in national budgets. This is his proposal. And after which his friend Huchon says that I am “worse than Le Pen” and his friend Valls says that I am “a danger for democracy”. And the pack of scavengers who spend their time insulting me by abusing their professional monopoly on the media because I spoke ill of a member of the holy class of sacred cows among the mediacrats have nothing to say about such a find. The "great" journalists who "explore the news", "reveal", comment, are outraged as soon as a Venezuelan receives a fine for having called for the murder of the head of state, those there have nothing to say when the favorite in the polls proposes to bring his country back below what it lived under monarchical absolutism.The same cohort of important people who hold forth on "unloved Europe" because "unloved explained" is also silent on the construction of the "Great Transatlantic Market", even though the meeting is held on the same day and at the same place as the NATO summit, yet covered by their rubricards.All this little world has entered a new convulsion and trance of useful laziness: see nothing, say nothing, put on a show and let it live its life.
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Between Strasbourg and Havana
Excerpt from a blog post from December 19, 2010
Finally, the issue of reforming the global monetary system is addressed. The authors of the column "For a rally without erasing the PCF" write: "What a waste of our contributions if the Left Front does not carry in the campaign for the presidential election the idea of a common world currency, born in the ranks of the PCF, as opposed to the domination of the dollar! Indeed that would be a waste. But the risk is not there. Anyway coming from me. With the PG, and as evidenced by dozens of notes on this blog, we are very far from being indifferent to global monetary issues. My systematic and radical criticism of the domination of the dollar in the media is constant. See the two sessions on "Arrest on images" with Touati or Attali. For my blog I invite you to jump on my note of November 5, largely devoted to the subject. I am a little bitter to see that the authors do not take into account the fact that our party is the only one to have denounced publicize the “Grand Marché Transatlantique” project, in particular by publishing the only brochure available in France on this subject. And I myself also spoke in the plenary session of the European Parliament to challenge the Barroso Commission on this project.I also unambiguously supported the proposal for a "common global currency" put forward by China, the Russia and Brazil for two years in my speech to the European Parliament on October 21, 2009. I declared: "Why did you not seriously examine China's proposal for a common global currency for the benefit of the stability of the global economy? Finally, I refer in particular to program sheet n°165 where the PG defends a new global commercial, financial and monetary architecture, leaving the IMF, the WTO and the domination of the dollar.
The Great Transatlantic Market: multinationals against democracy
Book by Ricardo Cherenti and Bruno Poncelet published in the “Politique à Gauche” collection of Bruno Leprince editions, in May 2011
In May 2011, when no one was talking about the Grand Marché Transatlantique, a book was published on the subject by Ricardo Cherenti and Bruno Poncelet in the “Politique à Gauche” collection of Bruno Leprince editions. This book can be ordered by following this link.
Do you know that important things happen during media briefings?
Excerpt from a blog post from June 3, 2011
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The destruction of the euro zone would not be bad news for everyone! Because however powerful the system effects that are at work, we must also take into account the geopolitical context that surrounds them. Everything is not just a pure system effect in what is happening. The fall of the euro is even a very good thing for the United States of America. The existence of the euro, especially at such an exchange value, makes it a safe haven currency. The nightmare. The USA are already buying back their debt securities, they no longer publish figures on the dollar money supply in circulation. This mass of paper overlooks in the United States a weak production in industry as in agriculture. The share of these two activities in the North American model is almost residual. The dollar is an artifact. A piece of paper. Nothing more.
The US Federal Reserve's money printing press has indeed embarked on a headlong rush.For it, it is a matter of absorbing soaring US deficits at all costs. Since February, there has been a shift that shows the financial impasse into which the United States is sinking. The US Treasury has announced that, for the first time, the biggest holder of US Treasury bonds is no longer China, which would now own "only" 900 billion US bonds, but the Federal Reserve itself, which then held around 1,400 billion bonds in the total stock of American debt (14,300 billion dollars). At the current rate of widening federal deficit, that number must have reached $1.6 trillion by now. With more than 1,400 billion holes in 2010, the US public deficit exceeds 10% of the country's GDP. That is to say the same level of deficit that Greece had reached in the spring of 2010 when it was attacked by the markets. In absolute value, this American public deficit represents all the national wealth of countries like Spain or India. And, every day, this hole grows an average of 4 billion more dollars! That is to say the equivalent of the annual national wealth of Guinea. At this rate, the federal deficit should reach 1,600 billion in 2011.
Why is what was deemed unacceptable for Greece still deemed acceptable for the United States?Precisely because of the unlimited means of financing that is the printing press in dollars. But this permanent bailout in monkey money is less and less misleading. The rating agencies, in the hands of Obama's Republican adversaries, are multiplying the knife strokes. I have already reported on this blog the first threat expressed at the beginning of April by the agency Standard and Poor's. The day before yesterday, it was Moody's turn to put the US rating on negative watch. This led to a fall on Wall Street, frightened by the "very low but growing risk of temporary default" of the United States pointed out by this agency. This arm wrestling with the rating agencies coincides with another arm wrestling between Obama and the Republicans, now in the majority in the House of Representatives, which is voting on the budget. Since May 16, the Federal State has reached its legal debt stock ceiling, which is 14,294 billion. And on Tuesday, Obama suffered a vote of rejection in the House of Representatives to which he had urgently proposed to raise the debt ceiling to 16.694 billion. Even without this increase, the US public debt is now sailing beyond 100% of the country's GDP. Like that of Greece. And since the US Treasury can no longer borrow temporarily because of this rejection vote, it urgently tinkers with financial patches. He announced Thursday evening the sale to Fiat of the 6% share held by the federal state in the car manufacturer Chrysler. That's more than half a billion dollars worth of repairs. With an enormous symbolic impact: this sale allows Fiat to cross the threshold of 50% in the capital of Chrysler!
Having caught up with the United States in terms of production and having accumulated absurd surpluses, China is also weakened if the dollar does too badly. It has nearly $3 trillion in its foreign exchange reserves. But how to get rid of it? By buying everything that comes along? She is doing it. With caution, given the level of responsiveness as soon as it presents itself as a buyer somewhere. Then, by selling dollars against euros. But each time it does, it undermines the value of the dollar itself and increases the harm it seeks to ward off to protect its assets. Vicious circle, super unstable equilibrium. The fall of the euro and the knocking out of old Europe is a matter that would greatly benefit the G2, the tandem that holds itself by the goatee and drags the world after it. My reasoning is that the fall is inevitable. Others are convinced of it like me. Two choices then arise.
First choice: solidarity with the United States.This is the line of the constitution of a Large Transatlantic Market between the European Union and the United States of America . This strategy is underway. It should be completed in 2015. Of course, it is not debated in any national parliament even though the project is advancing through joint declarations and transition plans adopted with great congratulations at international meetings. It is also not discussed in the media. But the thing is done. For me, that's a big mistake. The United States of America considers us its backyard. They negotiate directly with the Chinese without taking any account of our interests which are not at all theirs. Caricaturing: they speculate, we produce. They parasitize us. We feed them.
The United States is dragging us along in its fall.And in its decline. This is why in my book "Let them go away all", I proposed to guarantee our independence and our sovereignty by negotiating in a privileged way with those who are our problem in terms of competition in production. Those who will be "number one" in the world, for sure, in less than twenty years. The Chinese ! My reasoning is that it is better to be in dialogue and partnership with the strongest than to rely on another to do so. From this position, superficial commentators have deduced that I have some kind of "tenderness for China". As if, in these sorts of subjects, there was room for nonsense of this nature. This formula was born in a comment by Marianne 2 on my book. And, since then, it has been circulating in the argument sheets of people who have not read my book. It gives them important airs of friends of human rights. That I receive lessons in this area, especially from such people, is truly incredible. But I must admit, considering what my opponents are and their various connections! However, this does not detract from my reasoning on which I am surprised to never hear anything. I think and I propose within a geopolitical framework. I make globalization an issue, perhaps even a point of support for changing its course and lowering popular sovereignty in Europe and in my country. In front of me, I only find people who are content to make it a fantasy and a pretext for inaction.
“EU imperialism in the face of the BRICS countries and other emerging powers. »
Explanation of text on the Europe blog for the session from February 1 to 2, 2012
What does the Saryusz-Wolski report offer?
Positive
– “considers that the Parliament should participate in bilateral summits between the EU and its strategic partners”
– “considers that the staff of the EU delegations in BRICS should include parliamentary liaison officers”
- “stresses the need to improve political dialogue with BRICS countries with regard to respect for human rights and social and environmental standards; recalls in this regard that respect for core labor standards and the ILO decent work agenda”
Doubtful
- recommends "supporting regional organizations bringing together the BRICS and other emerging countries" but only cites "ASEAN or Mercosur" as examples. What about UNASUR and CELAC?
– “calls on the Union and its Member States to support South-South cooperation initiatives” but only those of interest to Euroliberals?
– recalls that “the EU is formally committed to promoting effective multilateralism with, at its centre, a strong United Nations” We would have preferred multilateralism within the framework of the UN ( as it is written in the Treaty of Lisbon)
Negative:
–puts the transatlantic partnership, the G7, the G8 and the G20 at the heart of the global governance he calls forx
- advocates "a constructive partnership between the established powers and the emerging powers" instead of aiming at the cooperation of all States within the UN for the general interest
- advocates "a new system of global governance that is inclusive and based on extensive consultation and close cooperation with the BRICS and other emerging economies" (and other countries?)
- states that "the BRICS and current emerging economies are not an official grouping destined to play a special role in international affairs, nor do they belong to such a grouping", and explains "that the European Union should therefore develop relations with each of these countries, taking into account their uniqueness and their specific objectives in terms of foreign policy” (the BRICS are an official grouping, not the BRICS “and the emerging economies”, the text draws the conclusion that the BRICS must be treated separately to better disarticulate their cooperation…);
- explicitly asks the EU to "discourage the creation or consolidation of possible groups of alternative states demonstrating cohesive foreign policy" and to "discourage the formation of blocs between powers as well as the strategic competition between emerging power blocs”
– calls on the EU to “strengthen relations and build synergies, in particular with the BRICS which genuinely share and respect democratic values and aspiring to a social market economy;
- calls on the EU "to maximize its interests and role in the various regions and to contribute to the consolidation of a multipolar order with a political and economic balance between established and emerging economies" ( governance seen from the perspective of the balance between powers and not from the perspective of the general interest)
– welcomes the various free trade agreements negotiated and in the process of being negotiated with each of the BRICS countries and with Mercosur
- demands that "on issues of global concern or related to global governance, the EU, rather than its Member States, should be the interlocutor of the current powers, the BRICS countries and other emerging countries "
The structure of global governance outlined in the text:
A strengthened transatlantic partnership: "regular summits between the United States and the EU would make it possible to identify common objectives and coordinate their strategies on issues of global importance, including economic governance, in order to arrive at a common approach towards emerging powers",
"believes that the Transatlantic Economic Council and the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue could also constitute an opportunity for dialogue and stocktaking and should therefore include a reflection on the strategic engagement of the EU and the United States with the BRICS countries and other relevant emerging countries and on how to strengthen regulatory convergence with these countries;
recalls the need to create a Transatlantic Political Council, as an ad hoc body for systematic high-level consultation and coordination on foreign and security policy between the EU and the United States »
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Deciphering the conclusions of the conclusions of the eurozone and EU summits
Analytical excerpt from the Europe blog of June 29, 2012
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The “Pact for Growth and Jobs” has been adopted
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Here are the main points:
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Contributions on the EU:
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Roughly speaking, we find the same thing as at the summit last March:
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– Promote free trade and access to public markets in third countries (in particular : rapid ratification of signed free trade agreements, rapid finalization of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada, launch of negotiations for a Comprehensive Agreement on Transatlantic Trade and Investments – part of Large Transatlantic Market – in 2013)
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No to the merger between EADS and BAE!
Analysis on the Europe blog of September 22, 2012
A merger is planned between the Franco-German aeronautics giant EADS and the British BAE, heir to British Aerospace. Here or there, when someone talks about it in the media, the information is only approached from its commercial and financial angle. Never in its strategic and political dimension. It was also announced in the indifference of the government. Not a word of comment.
However, the French State is one of the main shareholders of EADS. This project is the first major initiative of the new president of EADS, the German Thomas Enders, who replaced the French Louis Gallois since last June. While Gallois was a defender of industry attached to the role of the state in the economy, Enders is a liberal who has long campaigned within the CSU, the ultra-conservative wing of the majority of Mrs Merkel. This gentleman chairs the German employers' club which works for transatlantic rapprochement, the Atlantik Brücke e.V.He is therefore an active and ardent artisan of the Grand Marché Transatlantique, the famous GMT, of which it is impossible to hear about in France at the time that it is supposed to be in place in 2015. The wish of this Thomas Enders to get closer to the British aeronautics and defense group is therefore not limited to the commercial and financial aspect.
By breaking the Franco-German axis that supported Airbus and EADS, this merger would make possible a new German-British axis at the head of the new group. With a much more transatlantic than European tropism. Because the British BAE is already a group strongly integrated into the US military-industrial complex.It has subsidiaries in the USA. And he is directly involved in the development of the new US combat aircraft, the F35, which is intended to replace the F16, the best-selling military aircraft in history.This would further isolate the French Rafale program in Europe. In terms of the defense industry, this merger would therefore bury any hint of European independence from the USA.
As for civil aeronautics, BAE has not left good memories there. When EADS was formed in 1998, BAE had in fact acquired a 20% stake in Airbus after renouncing to integrate EADS as such. Before getting rid of this participation in 2006, directly contributing to the financial difficulties of Airbus.
Here I summarize as much as I can so as not to overload this information with technical and historical considerations. But I believe I have made the essentials felt. I am outraged that the government is saying and doing nothing. The historical and blinded Atlanticism of Jean-Marc Ayrault and François Hollande cuts off these two men from a truly informed understanding of the requirements imposed by the concern for independence and sovereignty vis-à-vis the United States. The Germans, accustomed to living under the nuclear and military umbrella of the North Americans since the partition of Germany, do not feel things like us.
I believe that this operation should be opposed. I think that the government, which has already accepted the so-called "anti-missile shield" in Washington, is voluntarily allowing a conception of defense to be put in place that at least deserves to be assumed in order to be able to be discussed. The greatest mistrust is therefore appropriate in the face of this merger project, both for the independence of our defense and for the future of Airbus.
“The Three Bifurcations” – The Challenge of Politics in a Multipolar World
Speech at the International Symposium in Buenos Aires on October 12, 2012
(…)
The rejection of the Grand Marché Transatlantique:
The action of the USA to politically escape its decline concerns me as an MEP. I oppose the current project to establish a Single Transatlantic Market (GMT) between the United States of America and the European Union.I do not agree of course with social deregulation and generalized tax that this union implies. I can clearly see how the great game intended to constantly expand the deregulated spaces for trade and finance is being set up by this means. You almost knew this in South America with the NAFTA extension project.But above all, I can see what place this new large market occupies in the imperial strategy to thwart the change in the hierarchy of powers. All in all, I believe that the constitution of the large transatlantic market is a threat for emerging countries as much as for old Europe.
The European Parliament in favor of the rapid establishment of the Greater Transatlantic Market
Analysis on the Europe blog of October 24, 2012
After having voted for the accelerated strengthening of the EU-Israel free trade agreement, the European Parliament was to vote on an own-initiative report, that is to say a declaration without legislative weight on a vast subject: the Great Transatlantic Market.
The subject is vast and little known. The major media never echo the progress towards this "free trade zone +" of this "large integrated market" which has been prepared for us for years in the greatest secrecy and which few of us denounce.
I would like to inform you of the existence of a platform, the "Platform against transatlanticism" which we launched 2 years ago with several personalities and whose two main leaders are Bruno Poncelet and Ricardo Cherenti, co -authors of the only book ever produced on the subject “Le Grand Marché Transatlantique – Europe, a transatlantic limited company”. I invite you to take a look from time to time on the web page of our platform: http://www.no-transat.be/
The results of the nominal votes are in.
The following MEPs voted for the Grand Marché Transatlantique. Remember their names:
PS: Eric Andrieu, Pervenche Berès, Jean-Louis Cottigny, Sylvie Guillaume, Liem Hoang Ngoc, Isabelle Thomas, Patrice Tirolien, Catherine Trautmann, Bernadette Vergnaud, Hernri Weber
The following deputies voted against:
PG: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Younous Omarjee and Patrick Le Hyaric
PS: Françoise Castex
EELV: Malika Benarab-Attou, Sandrine Bélier, Jean-Pail Besset , Jean-Jacob Bicep, José Bové, Yves Cochet, Karima Delli, Hélène Flautre, Catherine Grèze, Yannick Jadot, Eva Joly, Nicole Kill-Nielssen, Michèle Rivasi, Karim Zeribi
You will find below a brief historical reminder of the construction of this "GMT" as well as the most interesting passages of the text of the Moreira report and my intervention during the meeting.
The Grand Marché Transatlantique: an old project on the way to becoming a reality
Since 1990, the United States and the European Union have initiated the establishment of annual political summits and joint technical working groups with the aim of deepening their bilateral relationship
At the 1995 transatlantic summit, the New Transatlantic Agenda was adopted. The USA and the EU decide to move towards a harmonized transatlantic Euro-US free trade area. Goods, services, capital, places of production and skilled workers could circulate freely there on the basis of the principle of free competition. The Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT) project was born.
The first advances within the framework of this agenda remained at the time limited to partial agreements such as:
· the Atlantis project (1995): transatlantic student and faculty mobility with the eventual adoption of common diplomas
· the agreement on mutual recognition of standards and certification (1997): agreement verification of product conformity (testing, inspection, certification) by the European Union according to common standards (kind of ACAA) limited to a few priority sectors (telecommunications equipment, computers, satellite terminals, electromagnetic compatibility, medical devices , pharmaceutical products).
In 2005, the Transatlantic Economic Integration and Growth Initiative relaunched the Greater Transatlantic Market project. The USA and the EU decide to harmonize production standards, consumer protection standards, access to the services market, the functioning of financial markets, competition policy and intellectual property rights.
In 2007, the first institution of the Grand Marché Transatlantique was created. The Transatlantic Economic Council (CET), in charge of harmonizing US and European legislation destined to become transatlantic standards, was thus set up.
How the CET works is a reflection of the obscure construction of the GMT: unelected personalities (in particular the European Commissioner for Trade) discreetly negotiate the priorities in terms of legislative harmonization for everything concerning the future transatlantic market.
Officially, the CET has its democratic counterpart: the Transatlantic Dialogues which embody different concerns of "civil society" such as:
· the business world (Transatlantic Business Dialogue, made up of multinationals),
· the trade unions (Transatlantic Labor Dialogue, which brings together the ETUC and the AFL-CIO)
· consumers (Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue),
· the environment (Transatlantic Environmen Dialogue).
In fact, however, the dominant “Dialogue” is that of the business world. The trade unions have only been invited once to officially participate in the work of the CET. As for the Transatlantic Environmental Dialogue, it was canceled in 2000, the George Bush government considering its positions too restrictive for companies.
During the 2010 Transatlantic Summit, a Working Group on Cyber-security and Cyber-crime was created.
In November 2011, during the last Transatlantic Summit, a High Level Task Force on Jobs and Growth was created. It is co-chaired by the US Trade Representative (currently Ron Kirk) and the European Commissioner for Trade (currently Karel De Gucht).
This group is responsible for considering
-the elimination or reduction of traditional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff quotas
-the elimination, reduction or prevention of barriers to trade in goods, services and investment
-opportunities to harmonize regulations and standards
-the reduction or elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade in all categories
-the strengthening cooperation for the development of rules and principles on global issues of common interest
Why is this report now on the table in Parliament?
In June 2012, this High Level Working Group issued its interim report. Its recommendations are of course only available in English. Here is a brief overview:
-phasing out all duties on bilateral trade and all but the most sensitive customs tariffs in a short period of time.
-setting up negotiations to end all non-tariff barriers and achieving a fully integrated market.
-services: alignment with the highest level of free trade in existing free trade agreements and addressing barriers to market access. Establishment of a system of mutual recognition of licenses and qualifications.
-investment: alignment with the highest level of investment liberalization and investor protection
-development of common rules for political agreements and that can also be used for third countries and at the multilateral level in the following areas: (a) trade and customs facilitation; (b) competition and state-owned enterprises; (c) labor market and environment; (d) provisions for small and medium enterprises; (e) strengthening supply chains; (f) access to raw materials and energy.
The final report of the high-level working group is due at the end of 2012.
On this basis, in the first half of 2013, negotiations to reach an agreement on the effective establishment of the Large Transatlantic Market will be relaunched in the short term. The subject was also omnipresent in the conclusions of the last two European summits.
What does the Moreira report propose?
Almost Positive
-insists on “protecting geographical indications in bilateral agricultural trade” (but this is to better enable free trade, not to help protect the environment)
-“ is in favor of the total abolition of export refunds in agricultural trade between the European Union and the United States" (but only between the EU and the USA?)
-"stresses the need to involve closely the parliamentary committees” to transatlantic work (but only mentions the European Parliament, not the national parliaments…)
Blablabla-“stresses the importance of continuing to strengthen transatlantic economic relations, while promoting the Union's interests in areas such as environmental, health and animal protection standards , food safety, cultural diversity, employment rights, consumer rights, financial services, public services or indications of source, among others" (the EU's interests in this area? What are they? Which trade unions consulted? Which environmental NGOs? And the general interest? And the protection of the human ecosystem?)
· Very questionable
-“calls for the opening of negotiations between the European Union and the United States and other partners in order to find a way of working together in order to combat the environmental crisis and the change climatic; (this is done at the UN level! not between states that agree to then impose their standards on others)
· Negative
-“welcomes the commitment shown by G8 and G20 policymakers to open up trade and investment, expand markets and fight protectionism in all its forms”
-"welcomes the interim report of the high-level working group and its preliminary recommendations"
-affirms "that a global agreement must include an ambitious and reciprocal opening of the market for goods, services and investment, and must also be concerned with modernizing trade rules and improving the compatibility of regulatory regimes"
-says that "it would still be beneficial to make progress in many areas, particularly in the dismantling of trade barriers, in the introduction of measures to improve market access, including investment, in the protection of intellectual property rights, in the opening up of public procurement to guarantee full reciprocity, in clarification, simplification and harmonization of rules of origin, and in the convergence towards mutual recognition of regulatory standards"
-explains that "it is in the strong interest of the Union's business community and United States to Eliminate Remaining Tariffs”
-“concurs with the goal proposed by the High-Level Working Group of eliminating all tariffs from bilateral trade, in order to achieve elimination tariff barriers from the entry into force of the agreement and a progressive elimination of all customs tariffs, with the exception of the most sensitive ones, within a short time"
-displays a goal: "to improve the competitiveness of companies on both sides of the Atlantic” (well, the northern part on the other side, not the southern part…)
–“subscribes to the ambitious objectives proposed by the working group to evolve gradually towards a more integrated transatlantic market"
-supports "an institutionalization of the intercompatibility between the European and American regulatory regimes (which) would greatly facilitate transatlantic trade and establish a bold global standard" (thus wants to impose its standards on the rest of the world!)
-states that "overly rigid regulatory standards pose significant barriers to trade, and that greater growth could be achieved by dismantling them" (the text spoke of health and fair environment before but it is unclear whether the reflection also relates to other areas!)
-"stresses the need to avoid creating, even inadvertently, new barriers to trade and investment"
–“gives its support to the efforts made to cooperate as closely as possible from the beginning of the regulatory process for the development of standards” (from there that the laws are decided upstream by the Transatlantic Council, there is only a step…already largely crossed unfortunately)
-declares that “differences in regulations and measures “behind the border” constitute a particular barrier to trade for SMEs” (therefore the same rules should be created everywhere, including including taxes etc)
- faster innovation by reducing the risks and costs of new technologies”
-states that “increasing trade in services, and taking measures to promote investment and procurement markets, should constitute an essential element of any future transatlantic agreement"
-"supports the ambition of the working group to go beyond the level of liberalization of services achieved by the Union and the United in existing free trade agreements by dismantling remaining barriers, which have existed for a long time, including modes of supply of services, while recognizing the sensitive nature of certain sectors”
-says “that increased coherence between services regulations could also improve the integration of the single market for services in the EU and the US; calls for better cooperation in the exchange of best practices with a view to improving the efficiency of the public sector at the transatlantic level"
-calls "that every effort be made to create integrated and truly open digital markets and transatlantic financial services"
-"calls on both parties to further open their public markets respective”
–“calls on the Commission and its US counterparts to consider drafting a provision to be included in the potential free trade agreement between the EU and the US,which would allow a future harmonization of these agreements in order to form an EU-NAFTA interregional agreement"
-affirms "its total commitment to a multilateral trading system, embodied by the WTO, which remains by far the best guarantor of free and fair trade in the world and which must remain the basis of trade in the 2th century despite the emergence of a multipolar world"
–"request, after preparation and careful and thorough consultation, that negotiations be opened in the first half of 2013 and that current political momentum and industry support be taken advantage of to enable a speedy and successful conclusion of the negotiations”
–“requests that, once negotiations have been opened,
I voted against this text.
Here is my intervention in the meeting on the subject:
“This report is an ode to the creation of the Greater Transatlantic Market, which I am fighting against. He approves without embarrassment all the proposals of the high-level working group created last November without the citizens knowing anything about it. Alignment with the most liberal, establishment of an integrated transatlantic market including in the field of services and in particular financial services, elimination of all customs barriers in the more or less short term, close cooperation from the start of regulatory processes, fight against protectionism in all its forms, ambition to set up “global standards”, proposal to establish an integrated market with NAFTA… Everything is there. Nothing is missing. Except of course the general interest and the consultation of workers' representatives and national parliamentarians, the only ones forgotten in the famous transatlantic "dialogues". I vote against this text. »
A new ordinary summit for the Austerity Union
Analytical excerpt from the Europe blog of October 24, 2012
(…)
The rest of the findings came later in the day.
They arrived after the second part of the European Summit meeting as usual.
“The European economy has several difficult times to overcome”. This is the first sentence of the text after the introduction. What conclusions do our Heads of State and Government draw from this? “It is therefore essential that the European Union does everything in its power without delay to implement the measures that have been agreed upon in recent months.” In short: austerity and liberalisations do not work, let us continue the massacre. The recipe is therefore the same as in June:
(…)
–Betting on “strategic partnerships” (include in particular the United States and the establishment of the Greater Transatlantic Market to which the EU texts tirelessly call)
The crisis as a strategy
Excerpt from the “Inaudible Thoughts” blog post of December 26, 2012
No one pays attention to it anymore and the level of information given by the media on this subject has long since fallen below the waterline. In any case, there was a European summit on December 13 and 14. I made a report of it. Now I want to bounce the analysis on a very eloquent sentence of the final press release where we learn that the "crisis" is not only what we believe. It would also be an opportunity more than a calamity. Attention, reader in a hurry, my text is dense! It is an ordering of my ideas that I share.
The information system on the activity of the European Union has been completely bankrupt. Narratives and role-playing on the “last chance summits” and other scenarios have come out melodramatic, the ordinary griots of “the Europe that protects us” have nothing to say. It is impossible to find anywhere the slightest documented information, the slightest presentation of the content of the measures taken in the usual media giving lessons in European morality. Nor, moreover, the slightest curiosity or investigation, when the official European source does not itself provide pre-chewed information on a subject. For my part, I published my report on this subject as I do all European news on my dedicated blog. I will therefore not repeat here my account of the whole of what was decided there. But I want to return to a point suggested by a careful reading of the final declaration. I do it because it illuminates the scene of the moment we live in a special way.
What did not facilitate interest in this summit is that the documents have not been translated into French. None! Agenda, information note, everything was delivered in English! This is the rule now. Under the pretext of economy, parliamentarians and citizens are deprived of the only means of understanding the stakes of the decisions taken: translation. By taking a look at the European Commission's website, you can see the number of untranslated documents. Considering the derisory sums that are involved on a European scale for these translations, I deduce that this attitude is deliberate.It is a question of reserving the understanding of what is happening to those who have the use of the language of decision makers. On the other hand, it is also a matter of methodically preparing for the transition to the Single Transatlantic Market, whose sole working language will be English. In the immediate future, this confinement allows the Euro-blissful media to stick to surface stories without risking being challenged by direct contact by the public with the real texts.In what is happening is said there is indeed more to say than the accounts of circumstances have done. Note that these words do not mean discharge on my part on what these accounts have brought to the knowledge of the general public. Indeed, whether it is a question of "aid to Greece", of the famous "new" banking supervision of which the anti-shabby Ayrault has made such vibrant gargles, and so on, everything has been once again manipulative copying of the official word, without imagination or curiosity, mixed here and there with rumors organized by the press attachés of the Eurocrats. Once again, on these subjects I refer you to my report because it will allow you to take the measure.
(…)
EU-US free trade agreement: Hollande must oppose
Communiqué dated 1stFebruary 2013
Angela Merkel spoke on Friday 1stFebruary to "move forward in the negotiations on a free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States of America".
This Greater Transatlantic Market project has been moving forward for years behind the backs of people. Angela Merkel finally assumes this ultraliberal and Atlanticist project.
Such an agreement would be one more step in the free-trade bankruptcy of the European Union. It would also sound the definitive anchoring of the EU in the United States.
Since the European elections of 2009, I have opposed this project supported by liberal Eurocrats and protected by the silence of the elites.
What does François Hollande think? The President of the French Republic must end his complicit silence on the subject. He must oppose this disastrous project.
US-EU free trade agreement: Hollande must oppose!
Press release of February 13, 2013
After Angela Merkel on February 1, Barack Obama has just come out in favor of a free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States of America.
This ultra-liberal and Atlanticist project of a Grand Marché Transatlantique has been advancing for years behind the backs of the people.
Such an agreement would be one more step in the free trade bankruptcy of the European Union. It would also sound the definitive anchorage of the EU in the United States.
Since the 2009 European election, I have opposed this project supported by liberal Eurocrats and protected by the silence of the elites.
What does François Hollande think? The President of the French Republic must end his complicit silence on the subject. He must oppose this disastrous project.
Obama announces the annexation of Europe
Excerpt from the blog post "The time of the high tides" of February 25, 2013
Those who liked the big heavy of Titan will love the rest of the story. This kind of morons will soon be at home in Europe. Indeed, Barack Obama publicly mentioned in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, February 12, the opening of negotiations on the Greater Transatlantic Market. One of the public secrets best protected by the independent and ethical free press is now in the public square. Perhaps some will give up calling me paranoid when I bring up the subject from now on. Because I have already spoken a lot about the Grand Marché Transatlantique, many times, on this blog. My attentive readers know how few of us have been interested in it. To sum up, it is a project for a large integrated and liberalized market between Europe and the United States of America. We guess that it was not imagined for the benefit of human beings but, as usual, blah blah blah free and undistorted markets. In faithful summary: a new unprecedented wave of social regression.
In fact, if Obama is talking about it, it is because the preparatory work carried out in great discretion is now quite advanced. And as the deadline for the project is set for 2015, the big maneuvers are moving to a public phase. Born about ten years ago, the project has already been on the agenda of several summits of Heads of State and ministerial meetings at European level. The European Parliament has supported it in five successive votes since 2004, thanks to the approval of MEPs from the EPP (right) and the PES (social democrats). Without ever wanting to say it or talk about it, Barroso and Ashton have made the realization of this project their objective. When Barroso was inaugurated for a new mandate at the head of the European Commission, I asked him about this in the plenary session of the European Parliament. He pretended not to understand where the problem was. I did the same with Catherine Ashton when she was appointed EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. In response: an awkward silence.
There has been something new on this subject.Not only has Obama announced the start of concrete negotiations with the European Union on the "Great Transatlantic Market", but the "working group of high level on jobs and growth" delivered its opinion. He also advocates the launch of negotiations. Immediately appears a joint statement by Obama, Barroso and Van Rompuy. In this statement, they "welcome the recommendations of the High Level Task Force on how to increase [the] transatlantic trade and investment partnership", affirm that "through this negotiation, the United States and the "European Union will not only have the opportunity to expand trade and investment (...) but also to contribute to the development of global rules likely to strengthen the multilateral trading system", in particular by liberalizing and abolishing barriers customs.
So it's understandable why Obama speaksof “free and fair transatlantic trade [that] supports millions of well-paying American jobs.” On the American side, the basis of the negotiations in question is as follows: they demand the lifting of European restrictions on the import of GMOs, poultry treated with chlorine and cattle fed with growth hormones, deregulation in terms of protection of personal data to please the philanthropic companies Google, Facebook and Amazon, the relaxation of environmental and health standards. In other words, the extension of the ultra-capitalist jungle to both sides of the Atlantic.
In Europe, Cameron and Merkel are delighted, saying that an agreement "would be a significant contribution to more growth and more jobs on both sides of the Atlantic". Meanwhile, in France, we are reaching heights of non-existence and cowardice on the issue. Hollande does not pipe a word, Moscovici strings together empty phrases and invites us to consider the Grand Marché Transatlantique with “openness and caution” (on France Info on February 13) and the Minister of Foreign Trade, Nicole Bricq, secretly launches a “public consultation” , that is to say a form on a hidden website, so that “all French actors concerned by (…) a free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States can express their opinion” . This consultation will end on March 1, 2013, have you heard about it?
Around a danger of such importance for the social life of our country, we would expect a great democratic and media debate. But the unconsciousness of the social-liberals and the complicit silence of the media have lasted since this project was born. For the media we understand. North American influencers are at home among the mediacrats. The social-liberals the same, and for longer. However, we must not give up. We, my comrades and I, have publicly campaigned against the Greater Transatlantic Market from the start. We alerted the Socialist Party by questioning in particular the PS MEPs who had spoken out in favor of the project. The Left Party has published explanatory brochures, political scientist Ricardo Cherenti and anthropologist Bruno Poncelet have published books on the subject. All these documents were sent to all the press. Lots of them, believe me. But with rare exceptions, no one among the important ones in the newsrooms has ever spoken about it. From now on, time is accelerating with the desire of the North Americans to begin negotiations: in three months the United States of America and the European Union must have presented their respective lines of negotiation in order to be able to conclude this agreement "within the two years ". This agreement, which will jeopardize the economies and continue to destroy the social and environmental protection systems of our countries, carries very concrete threats for citizens in terms of culture, food, health and work. A good understanding hello. Pass it on in your networks. This is an exemplary front of struggle to oppose the double Atlanticist and free-trade logic of this agreement that they would like to sign behind the backs of the people.
“What you see is a comedy”
Guest of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on February 28, 2013
On Thursday February 28, 2013, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the guest of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on BFMTV and RMC. A program during which the Grand Marché Transatlantique was mentioned. View from 07:50.
“The German question and the impasse in Europe”
Excerpt from the blog post "It's better by saying it" of March 15, 2013
(…)
Europe is German.And those who submit to it can only survive by becoming German themselves, without believing in it too much. The usual prayer wheels will refrain from inflicting on me the crudely agreed denunciations of my "contempt" for other peoples or whatever accusation of nationalism that only informs me of the level of bad faith that surrounded. In any case, I am not writing for my adversaries, nor for Pavlovian little brains, but for those of you who make the effort, like me, to enter into the difficulty of the problems that we face, not for reciting mantras there, but to try to find playable outcomes. For me, the votes of the "Two Pack" and the "Six Pack" are thresholds crossed in the submission of our country and the people who constitute it.The perspective of the Greater Transatlantic Market is now official, which is still threshold crossing. The whole system.A new page turns in my mind about what this Union actually is. I will come back to this at the Left Party congress.
(…)
“Is the Ayrault government going to sell France to the United States? »
Communiqué of April 17, 2013
The draft free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States of America is progressing hidden.This Greater Transatlantic Market is currently on the agenda of a meeting of European ministers of Foreign Trade, including French Minister Nicole Bricq. A final decision on the mandate of the European Commission must be taken on June 14. Secretly.
The candidate Hollande has never spoken of such a project in his electoral campaign. The French Parliament has never been called upon to debate it. It is an unbearable attack on the sovereignty of the French people. Madame Bricq nevertheless declared: “we can only be in favor” of this project. By what right does she speak like this? This project is disastrous from an economic, social, financial, agricultural, health and cultural point of view. With this project, Atlanticism, liberalism and authoritarianism are more than ever the doctrine of the European Union and of the government that accepts it. France must oppose this disastrous project against its independence and that of the European Union.
“That’s a ridiculous idea”
Guest of “12-13 Dimanche” on France 3, April 28, 2013
On Sunday April 28, 2013, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the guest of the program “12-13 Dimanche” on France 3. He notably mentioned, during this program, his proposal to set up protectionism solidarity (see the first minutes of the show) at a time when European and American leaders are moving forward on the Grand Marché Transatlantique project (see at 04:20).
Vertigo of the moment, facts and words
Excerpt from a blog post from May 24, 2013
I am writing this post for you mainly from Strasbourg. It is above all a question of the start of the great affair of this new century in Europe: the annexation by the USA of our already shattered democracies. This is the start of negotiations for the creation of a liberalized transatlantic single market. Years of warning have been for naught. The thick carpet of media and political silence has stifled the noise of the boot of the Yankee trusts. All of a sudden, after years of discreet preparation, everything gets carried away.
On a simple statement from Obama approved by Merkel, after a visit as solemn as formal by the androids Van Rompuy and Barroso, the machine started. The European Commission will give itself a negotiating mandate. Trading begins in July. Hollande is an absent subscriber. As for Ayrault… Who? And the media… The what? I divide my explanations into two chapters. One briefly describes the issue of the content of the treaty, the other analyzes the context of the political forces on the subject. I strongly urge my readers to seize the question by starting to learn the facts. My post is meant to help with that. But you also have the book edited by us(…). In any case, this affair will dominate all our political activity for months and probably for years. We cannot fight without forming an informed opinion on the subject. Mass popular education work must therefore begin immediately to achieve this. I hope we will come to power in time to defeat this plan. This is what happened in South America. The coming to power of our friends has allowed the treaty equivalent to this one to be thrown away at the last moment. In any case, we must work actively now.
(…)
An old mercantile plot
The big main course of this session was the vote on a resolution on the mandate of the European Commission in the negotiations which are opening for the establishment of a large single market between the USA and the European Union. In 2009, I published a widely distributed brochure on this theme.I warned of the dangers of this Great Transatlantic Market which has been brewing behind people's backs for ten years. A total media silence and a cautious omerta of the parties which participated in this discussion from the beginning have protected ten years of preliminary talks. This vast project of trade and investment liberalization is currently experiencing a spectacular acceleration without any people in Europe having decided on it. And for good reason: no government has ever included it in its electoral program, starting with François Hollande.I have already pointed out at the start of the year the relaunch of this projectby Obama who was immediately approved by Merkel. The mysteries of the European Union are now secretly debating a mandate to be given by the 27 Trade Ministers to the European Commission on June 14. Negotiations begin this summer! The existence of this draft mandate is well attested on March 13 on the website of the Council of the European Union under number 7396/13. But the document is stamped as “not accessible”. As the Treaties give the European Commission exclusive competence in commercial matters, the European Parliament has no binding power over this mandate. Moreover, it is not even officially seized of it. And MEPs don't even have access to it. Parliament only has the possibility of expressing a general opinion on this negotiation via a "resolution" as it votes on so many subjects on which it has no power. This is the meaning of the resolutions voted in Strasbourg this Thursday, May 23, the analysis of which I published on my European blog.
Thanks to the website of the newspaper "L'Humanité",this secret warrant project, which only exists in English, was finally made known this week . No mainstream media has yet addressed the extent of the upcoming negotiations. Just a debate has been open for 10 days on the place of audiovisual and cultural exception in this agreement. However, the secret mandate attests that it is indeed the entire economy and public services that will undergo a new wave of liberalization if this agreement is signed.
What is François Hollande doing about this?Nothing! Or rather, he passively endorses what Barack Obama and Angela Merkel have decided. The European Council of February 7-8 thus pronounced, with Hollande's approval and without him saying a word, "for a global EU / USA trade agreement". And, from February 13, still without a word from Holland, it was in Washington that the name of the new agreement was sealed by Barack Obama with Barroso and Van Rompuy. Hand sewn! The project will be called the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement”. It is thus already designated under the globisch term “TTIP” (“Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”). Obama and the two unelected EU leaders have set him the goal of “accelerating the liberalization of trade and investment”. The European Commission's negotiating mandate must now be definitively adopted on June 14 by the Council of Trade Ministers. And no sooner will the mandate be given to the Commission than the negotiations could be launched on the sidelines of the G8 summit on June 17, as proposed by the British David Cameron. Again Hollande did not say a word about this deadline when he will represent France at the G8.
This is all happening very quickly.The setup could have gone unnoticed as usual and the official media would continue their cover-up. But there was reaction from friends of European culture. I have already told what havoc this deal will entail in the world of cinema. The environment therefore reacted with firmness. It is the only sector that has done so for the moment. Indeed, cultural and audiovisual creations are threatened by this liberalization. These activities are indeed protected in Europe by public aid mechanisms but also by broadcasting regulations, such as quotas for songs in French or obligations to broadcast a minimum number of French films. From the point of view of the trade liberalization aimed at by the agreement, these are all obstacles to be eliminated. But in reality all sectors of activity are concerned. As a result, some would like to use the battle for “cultural exception” to hide the rest of the text and make it the tree that hides the forest of liberalisations. The secret warrant prepared by the Commission sets the objective of creating an “integrated transatlantic market”. It aims for the “liberalization of trade in goods and services and investment”, “with particular attention to removing unnecessary regulatory barriers”. He calls for the agreement to be “very ambitious, going beyond WTO liberalization commitments”. Did you understand correctly?
Let's take a closer look.This general liberalization operation has several components. First, the “total abolition of customs duties” on industrial and agricultural products. On this “tariff” aspect alone, the agreement is dangerous for Europeans. Indeed, according to figures from the European Commission, the average rate of customs duties is 5.2% in the EU and 3.5% in the USA. This means that if the duties fall to zero, the USA will gain a 40% greater benefit than the European Union. This advantage for products made in the United States will be further amplified by the weakness of the dollar against the euro. And this imbalance will be multiplied by the ecological and social weakness of production costs in the USA.Under these conditions, just by its quantitative aspect, this agreement will become a relocation machine. This will aggravate unemployment. The Commission also modestly acknowledges in the impact study it commissioned that this will lead to a “significant drop” in activity and employment in the metallurgy industry. In metallurgy!
Next comes the non-tariff aspect of the agreement.Here, it is not only the productions that will be impacted but the content of the regulations of the countries. The draft mandate calls for "reducing the costs resulting from regulatory differences" It proposes to "find new ways to prevent non-tariff barriers [i.e. laws] from limiting the ability of European and American companies to innovate and compete in global markets. Barroso also explained that “80% of the expected gains from the agreement will come from the reduction of the regulatory burden and bureaucracy”. This means that the androids of the European Commission see in this agreement the opportunity to go even further than the European Union is already doing in deregulation. “The burden”… it had to be found.
To liberalize access to markets, the EU and the US will have to converge their regulations in all sectors because more stringent standards are considered obstacles to free trade. However, contrary to what the European Commission and its liberal and social-democratic parrots in Parliament claim, the United States and Europe do not have “similarly rigorous standards in terms of employment and protection of the environment ". Indeed, the United States today is outside the main frameworks of international law in ecological, social and cultural matters. They do not subscribe to several important ILO conventions on labor law. They do not apply the Kyoto protocol against global warming. They refuse the convention for biodiversity. As well as the UNESCO conventions on cultural diversity. These are all commitments made by European countries.The US regulatory standards are therefore in most cases less restrictive than those of Europe. A liberalized common market with the United States would therefore drag all of Europe down.If an example is needed of the state of mind of North American trusts, the example comes from the Bangladesh. The European trusts have agreed to discuss the standards to be applied, according to them, in the future so as not to experience the recurrence of the horror that has just occurred. The Yankee trusts do not want to hear about these discussions or standards of any kind. You have been warned!
Now let's take a closer look at the damage in sight table. The first negative impact of such an agreement will be ecological. Here we find the infernal couple of productivism and free trade. Indeed, the project relies on exports as a solution to revive the activity. It will therefore oppose any policy of relocating activities that can reduce the human footprint on the ecosphere. Conversely, by increasing air and maritime traffic of goods across the Atlantic, the expected increase in exports will further increase greenhouse gas emissions. Don't think I'm being overzealous here without proof. The Commission itself realized that the question arose. It estimates this increase to be limited to between 4 and 11,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. All you have to do is believe her! But no matter how small the increase envisaged, it will always be too high. On the contrary, has the European Union not committed to reducing these emissions in general? What my left hand signs, my right hand doesn't have to know?
Because of the differences in standards I mentioned, this agreement will also be an incentive for the worst productivism to the detriment of the social and ecological quality of the products. For example in construction, the French HQE standards are much more restrictive than the American LEED standards. Ditto in terms of limiting automobile pollution or in terms of energy production. French automakers have also expressed reservations about the deal. Because although insufficient, their efforts to invest in less polluting engines would be slowed down and partly ruined by liberalisation.
And agriculture! That's the horror.The agreement would expose the Europeans to letting in the worst productions of US agribusiness: hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed poultry, GMOs, animals fed on animal meal. Not to mention the fact that the USA has loose traceability systems. And that they don't even know about "protected geographical indications". They consider the appellations “Bourgogne” or “Champagne” as generic names whose commercial use must be free. This could allow them to market “Champagne” produced in California. And so on. Farewell to the AOCs and all the immense and patient work of promoting the products that go with them. One who will rejoice is the Minister of the University: not only to speak English but to drink a Bordeaux from Tenessee at the same time!
It's not over.The draft terms of reference have some more bad news. We learn that the negotiation will also focus on “competition policy, including provisions on concentrations, mergers and bankruptcies”. And to those who hoped that public services would be excluded, it is made clear that “the agreement will concern public monopolies, public companies and companies with specific or exclusive rights”. The agreement thus aims to “open up public procurement at all administrative levels, national, regional and local”. Are you groggy already? Well, the delirium is not over yet. Because it is specified that he will have to fight against the negative impact of barriers such as “location criteria”. Enormous ! Example: impossible to promote, for example, short circuits in the supply of local authorities.
As we can guess, the financial aspect is the mainin the minds of the promoters of the agreement. It should be about investment and finance. In terms of investment, the mandate aims to achieve “the highest level of liberalization available in free trade agreements”. Specific “investor protection” measures will have to be negotiated, “including a regime for the settlement of disputes between States and investors”. Behind these obscure formulas, it is a question of providing investors with special rights and supranational preferential procedures compared to other litigants subject to the rights of States. This was the logic pursued by the "multilateral agreement on investment", says AMI, which the USA had tried to impose in 1998 and which had been abandoned following citizen mobilizations and France's refusal to accept. Return through the window of what Jospin had caused to sink. But this time François Hollande agrees! Another good news for financiers, the draft mandate calls for “total liberalization of current payments and capital movements”. This is a godsend for the least regulated and most speculative Anglo-Saxon financial centers! The US mortgage giants will thus be able to sell their rotten loans in Europe under the same conditions as in their country of origin. What benefits, we can see!
As I have already had the opportunity to explain such an agreement with the United States would also be a historic geopolitical mistake. For 10 years, the Empire has seen all its global trade liberalization efforts blocked at the WTO by the growing resistance of the countries of the South. By linking Europe to these liberalization projects in a package weighing 50% of world production, the United States is trying to reconstitute its domination, which is now in the process of collapsing in the face of China. It is quite simply a question for them of being able to continue to impose their law on the whole world. The Commission's draft mandate does not even conceal this by affirming that the common rules set by Europe and the United States should "contribute to the development of global rules". In short, this agreement matured at the same time as the theory of the “clash of civilizations” of which it is the geopolitical translation.
Falling the Great Transatlantic Market
The European Parliament has therefore deliberated on the Commission's mandate to negotiate the implementation of the Greater Transatlantic Market. Of course, this text of the Parliament has no legislative or normative value. It is a resolution. Let's see its political context because it will be decisive for the future.
The Social Democratic Group has capitulated. What did I say ? He gets excited. Its rapporteur has just said that he was counting on this large market “to reindustrialise Europe”! Appalling! After which he formulates the confused discourse of this kind of posture: “draw red lines”, “negotiate firmly” and blabla. Appalling. The chairman of the Commerce Commission is a socialist. He is delighted with the opening of the negotiation. He thinks that it is not essential to withdraw from the discussion on certain areas such as the cultural field. In short, for him, it bathes! Without the intervention of the French socialist Henri Weber, his position would have been that of the social-democratic group! All in all, the Social Democrats step into the frame and run ahead. What strikes me is that to hear them there is no downside to the project. The large market would therefore be exclusively beneficial. Not even a reservation on the commissioner's propaganda announcing 2% growth thanks to this large market. Yet skepticism would be in order. Because if we put together all the growth already promised in the past about each agreement adopted, Europe should have a growth higher than that of China!
Here, the slackness of the social democratic groupcorresponds to what is happening in the national parties. French socialists are non-existent. They no longer have much influence on their group. This is of course due to their very great heterogeneity on European politics. But above all because they are now caught in a pincer movement under a double constraint. On the one hand there are the Germans who dominate the social democratic group. And moreover the latter coordinate permanently with the German deputies of the other political groups. On the other side there is the Elysée which guarantees the agreements with the German government. The signs of the effectiveness of this pliers are multiplying. One cannot understand otherwise their incredible vote to avoid the debate of the European Parliament on the subject of European food aid which everyone remembers was suspended because of the German government. Likewise, in the case of the transatlantic negotiation, the Germans are the least concerned. Indeed, they have no vital sectors in real competition with North Americans.
Generally speaking, this is how things are going to look. European social democracy will not withstand the shock for five minutes. She is already committed to the project. The French PS will focus on the question of the withdrawal of the project from the audiovisual field. If this point is acquired, it will be presented as a very big victory and all the rest of the Grand Marché Transatlantique project will be accepted. All the puppets of the Solferinians will blow their trumpets on this theme to make the treaty swallow. The just case of cultural exception would therefore serve as a smokescreen. The worst would have been, for the PS, if the cultural exception had been called into question from the outset. He would have had to fight the project himself and our work would be easier. In any event, as I have already said, the commitment of people of culture will facilitate our work. As long as the negotiation lasts, they will act and so will we. And very quickly farmers and public health associations will enter into the debate. Because all this is also threatened. How could it be otherwise? All of present-day European civilization was founded on state intervention. And what will happen when citizens will understand that the key issue of defense and armament industries is also included in the negotiation! In fact, the Great Transatlantic Market is an annexation of Europe by the United States. What bullshit! Nothing will remain of the European ideal with this large market. Not only will our present be destroyed, but our future will be permanently blocked. Because how then to set European objectives for wage or tax harmonization or enhanced cooperation? These are clear obstacles to free and undistorted competition. The punishments would rain down if they were developed. The proof of this coercive functioning is given by what is happening vis-à-vis Canada, which is being sued for several billion dollars because of supposed obstacles to the law of free and undistorted competition. The GMT will therefore be a denial of the sovereignty of the people. It effectively declares the dissolution of the European Union in the single market of the USA.
We, the parties of the other left in southern Europewe know that the tribunician function and the concrete radicalism of the program go hand in hand. Any strategy of pressure and graduated negotiations always turns into a fool's bargain. Our friends in South America thwarted the ALCA, a similar project piloted by the United States. We must have the same objective, without compromise. Crash the GMT!
For a referendum on the Greater Transatlantic Market!
Press release of the National Council of the Left Party, May 26, 2013
The National Council of the Left Party denounces the Grand Marché Transatlantique project. This text delivers our country and the European Union to the economic and strategic interests of the United States. It does so by establishing free trade which is exempt from all ecological and social rules and more generally from any protection for the sole benefit of the United States.
It is the official and definitive renunciation of a Europe independent of American imperialism. On the contrary, this treaty reinforces its domination over a Western “bloc” in the service of an economic war with China and the other emerging powers, fraught with danger and contrary to our interests. By the same token, it also turns its back on any idea of a Europe at the service of international relations based on cooperation with the countries of the South.
We do not want an American Europe. The “GMT” is a text as decisive for the peoples as the Treaties of Rome, Maastricht and the ECT. This text was prepared on the catamini, it is about to be adopted in the same way: there can be no question of it!
This is why the CN DU PG, meeting on May 26, demands a referendum on the principle of this GMT even before any opening of official negotiations with the United States.To this end, we are proposing a broad united campaign in favor of the referendum with the left-wing parties, associations, trade unions which share our criticisms. From Monday we will make contacts with the aim of setting up a unitary framework to popularize and obtain this referendum in the months to come.
No to American Europe!
Video pitch by Laurent Mafféïs, May 29, 2013
On May 29, 2013, Télé de Gauche published a pitch video by Laurent Mafféïs, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's chief of staff, on the Grand Marché Transatlantique.
The return of the big market
Dossier by Laurent Mafféïs published on the Left Party website on May 29, 2013
For several years, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Left Party have been warning against the project of a large transatlantic market that is being plotted behind the backs of the people. This has just experienced a spectacular acceleration at the initiative of Obama and Merkel, who decided that negotiations would begin this summer for an application which could begin in 2015. Without François Hollande saying a word.
A project that has been running for 15 years
Constituting a large integrated transatlantic market is an old project of liberals and social-liberals. In 1995, Democrat Clinton, Christian Democrat Jacques Santer and Social Democrat Felipe Gonzalez launched a “new transatlantic agenda”. It installs non-elected permanent authorities which will become powerful lobbies in favor of the big market. This resulted in the New Transatlantic Market project in 1998, launched by the conservative Leon Brittan and the Italian and German liberals Mario Monti and Martin Bangemann. The objective is a free trade area with the removal of customs and regulatory barriers to trade in goods, services and investment. This project was temporarily stopped by Jospin and Chirac at the EU-USA summit in London. Bush, Merkel and Barroso relaunched it in 2007. And in the European Parliament, the right and the social liberals passed several resolutions to speed up its implementation by 2015.
Merkel and Obama hold the handlebars, Holland pedals
It was Barack Obama who gave the impetus to bring this project into a concrete negotiation phase. Angela Merkel subscribed to this acceleration on February 1 in Berlin. Then the European Council of February 7-8 decides “for a global EU-USA trade agreement”. February 13 in Washington Barack Obama signs with Barroso and Van Rompuy a declaration adopting the name of the future “transatlantic partnership agreement for trade and investment”. With the objective of “accelerating the liberalization of trade and investment”. Everything was therefore decided without François Hollande saying a single word in the name of France. The European Commission's negotiating mandate must be definitively adopted on June 14 by the Council. Rendered powerless over trade negotiations by the European Treaties, the European Parliament will have to settle for a non-binding resolution. And no sooner will the mandate be given to the Commission than the negotiations can be launched on the sidelines of the G8 summit on 17 June. In the most total opacity since commercial negotiation is an exclusive competence of the Commission.
The cultural exception: the tree that hides the forest
The only debate that exists today on this project concerns the threat it represents for cultural and audiovisual creation. The latter is in fact protected in Europe by public aid mechanisms but also by broadcasting regulations (quotas) which are all obstacles to free trade. In reality, the project is much larger and dangerous for the entire economy and public services (health, social protection, transport, energy). The Commission's draft mandate indeed aims for the “total abolition of customs duties on industrial and agricultural products” and “the objective of achieving the highest levels of investment liberalisation. »
Europe dragged down
To liberalize market access, the EU and the US will have to converge their regulations in all sectors because the more restrictive standards are considered obstacles to free trade. However, the United States is today outside the main frameworks of international law in ecological, social and cultural matters. They refuse to apply the main conventions on the work of the ILO, the Kyoto protocol against global warming, the convention for biodiversity but also the conventions of Unesco on cultural diversity. Their regulations are therefore in most cases less restrictive than those of Europe. This liberalized common market with the USA would therefore pull all of Europe down.
An ecological disaster
This project relies on exports as a solution to boost activity. It will therefore be a brake on the relocation of activities. The expected increase in exports will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions that the Commission estimates between 4 and 11,000 tonnes, in total contradiction with the EU's commitments to reduce these emissions. This agreement is also an incentive to the worst productivism to the detriment of the social and ecological quality of the products. For example, in construction, HQE standards are much more restrictive than American LEED standards. Ditto in terms of limiting automobile pollution or energy production.
In the agricultural field, the opening of the European market would also lead to the entry of low-cost products from US agribusiness: hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed poultry, GMOs, animals fed with animal meal. Not to mention the fact that the USA does not know about “protected geographical indications” which could allow them to market “champagne” produced in California.
A productive and social disaster
Even on a purely commercial level, such a free trade agreement would be to the detriment of Europe. The average rate of customs duties is indeed 5.2% in the EU and 3.5% in the USA. The US will therefore derive a 40% greater benefit from the total removal of duties. And the weakness of the dollar against the euro will benefit the USA even more to the detriment of European productions, which will be encouraged to relocate. Combined with the ecological and social weakness of US production costs, this agreement will thus become a relocation machine. The Commission recognizes, for example, that this will lead to a "significant drop" in activity and employment in the metallurgy industry. This will aggravate unemployment. And it will harden the pressure on social protections and public services. Barroso thus explained that “80% of the economic gains expected from the agreement will come from the reduction of the regulatory burden and bureaucracy”.
A geopolitical stalemate
This agreement is finally a political means for the United States to secure Europe to its declining world domination. Since 2001, the USA has come up against resistance from the countries of the South (China, Brazil, Argentina, India) at the WTO, which are blocking a new round of trade and financial liberalisation. The large transatlantic market is a means of crushing this resistance by enlisting Europe in a liberalized whole whose economic weight would be such (50% of world GDP) that it would impose the interests of Washington on the whole world.
The Great Transatlantic Market, a project against the peoples
Left of the Parti de Gauche, June 1st, 2013
On 1stJune 2013, the Left Party published a leaflet against the Grand Marché Transatlantique. You can view it by following this link.
No to American Europe!
Leaflet from the Left Party, June 5, 2013
On June 5, 2013, the Left Party publishes a new leaflet on the Grand Marché Transatlantique. You can view the front here and the back here.
The GMT, a serious loss of sovereignty: demand a referendum!
Argument by Sylvie Aebischer and Boris Billa published on the Left Party website on June 11, 2013
The Great Transatlantic Market (GMT) is a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. Far from being a technical subject, the GMT is a determining subject for the future of our social and economic model: let us seize the subject and demand a referendum!
1)An opaque process protected from the people and their vote
Old project, opposed by the entire left in 1998 under the name of the MAI (multilateral investment agreement), put back on the agenda in 2007 even if ignored by the media and kept out of sight opinion of the peoples. In 2012, the mobilization made it possible to erase ACTA from the shelves, an anti-counterfeiting agreement but in reality against the sharing of culture on the internet, which was negotiated secretly away from the people.
The agreement would change the face of Europe, which would be included in a vast economic-political zone with the United States: an entity of 77 states! The undemocratic institutions of the current Europe of 27 having demonstrated the impossibility of “upward” social harmonization, how can we weigh tomorrow against the 50 American States?
The commission should receive on June 14, 2013, the mandate of the member countries to open negotiations in July 2013, the agreement could then be concluded as early as 2015.Have we been asked for our opinion? Were we even kept informed?
Quick, let's demand a referendum!
2)An economic race that will only benefit the United States
The GMT proposes neither more nor less to extend the model of deregulation implemented in 1994 with NAFTA (free trade area United States, Canada, Mexico) which essentially protects American interests and those of large groups .
This free trade agreement in the field of goods, services and investments aims to remove all "tariff" barriers. Lowering customs duties would first benefit Americans who have lower customs tariffs than the EU and benefit from a dollar at a rate much lower than the strong euro wanted by Merkel and the ECB. This will greatly favor American production and could lead to further relocations. This will also be particularly clear on agricultural products (for example 20% on dairy products against 42% here) and would pave the way for the entry into force of American animal breeding products produced at very low cost in addition to -Atlantic: beef with hormones, chicken with chlorine could surge…
Only the European commissioners can still believe in the hazy argument that this would benefit growth and restore employment. We must not be the dupes of liberal globalization: this free trade agreement is even more competition and a race to the bottom!
Signing this agreement means sacrificing our companies and our social achievements to align ourselves with the American model.The solution to the current economic and ecological crisis is not a liberal war between American companies against European companies, it's relocation and solidarity protectionism!
3)Our social model in danger!
But the real challenge of the GMT remains the negotiation on standards. Because its main objective is to flatten all the regulations (known as “non-tariff barriers”). The Transatlantic Economic Council estimates the shortfall for the American and European economies at 160 billion euros per year from "inconsistency of regulations". Our production, social and environmental standards are no longer seen as obstacles to the market!
In social matters, all the protections related to labor law could be called into question. In environmental matters, it is all the regulations governing agri-food that are endangered, but also the moratoriums that were difficult to obtain on the extraction of shale gas! All service sectors are involved in the negotiation, including certain traditionally public sectors in France. Hospitals, social security, schools, universities… these are financial windfalls that still escape deregulation today!
The GMT could also give exorbitant rights to corporations by allowing them to directly sue states for regulations that interfere with their profits. It would pave the way for company/state disputes settled by arbitration that could cost taxpayers millions and force states to bring laws that would hinder their investments into compliance.
The establishment of a "cultural exception" is only a decoy to pass the pill.Insidiously, it is all the democratically defined policies that could be constrained by this new treaty ! Demand a referendum!
“The far right’s number one voice provider is at the Elysée”
Interview published in La Libre Belgique on June 15, 2013
(…)
The European Commission is counting – among other things – on the transatlantic market between the United States and Europe to revive the economy. You really don't see any potential in it?
The European Commission has all the cynics! Orwell has well described this tendency of authoritarian organizations to dress up hurtful objects in soft words.The Commission does NOT shirk! It is about creating a single market between the United States and the European Union, not only commercially, but a market with common social, ecological and economic standards. It is clear that in all cases and at all times,it is the least restrictive norm which will be considered as being the best.It is in the natural order in this hierarchy of standards... I don't know how the Commission hopes that transatlantic deregulation will give better results than what we have suffered with deregulation within the Union.We will have social and fiscal dumping with a increase in poverty. The Commission itself recognizes that there will be massive job losses in a whole series of sectors, starting with the metal industry.
(…)
“Ayrault and Hollande, the new Americans”
Excerpt from a blog post from June 16, 2013
Bands! Marching bands! The mandate of the European Commission to negotiate with the United States the formation of a Large Transatlantic Market, will not see the regime of cultural goods included in this negotiation. It's good news. It proves that we can block the greatest machineries when we have a clear and asserted political will loud and clear, as Aurélie Filippetti did. Ayrault's silence and his absence from the stage undoubtedly helped to make the Minister of Culture's determination credible. This being said,let’s see the real situation: France has accepted the opening of negotiations and therefore the very principle of the Grand Marché Transatlantique! It is appalling! Candidate Hollande had never mentioned it in his campaign. The Prime Minister never mentioned it in one of his speeches and in particular not during the one he gave for his investiture before the Assembly. The National Assembly itself has never debated it. This does not bother anyone among the psalmists of democracy and human rights. It is however a major bifurcation in the course of History between the two shores of the Atlantic.It is the announcement of a fundamental revision of the entire system of commercial, social and ecological standards of our countries. It is the end of the hope of being able to modify the liberal content of the construction of the European Union since the second turn of the lock is given with the rules of the Large Transatlantic Market. All this is so appalling that we understand better why the ringing of the trumpets of victory is so loud! It constitutes the supreme stage of smoking! Look in the press for the slightest reference to the fact that this negotiation is open without ever the slightest mandate on this subject having been debated in a French assembly! This is indeed a demonstration of what Edwy Plenel denounces: the habit of servitude becomes an active culture! The media system, out of laziness, out of blind acceptance of the dominant ideology, is not content to keep silent: it masks! It is true that the Solferinians played thin to deceive everyone. They know that some of the socialist deputies would never have voted for these negotiations to exist. And they knew that the EELV deputies would not have done it either. So they simply reserved the debate to the single question of cultural exception. The right and the media have done the other half of the job: smoke and cheer. Don't get us wrong, Aurélie Filippetti has done her job. It did so within the framework created by the capitulation decided by Ayrault and Hollande. These two are responsible for this first absurdity: France's back to the wall to defend its right to have an independent cultural production. It begins badly !
(…)
“I formally condemn this agreement”
Guest of BFM-TV on June 16, 2013
On Sunday, June 16, 2013, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the guest of the program “BFM Politique” on BFM-TV and RMC. An opportunity for the co-president of the Parti de Gauche to talk about the Greater Transatlantic Market and to denounce this agreement.
“Cultural exception: trickery”
Blog post from June 18, 2013
“Reactionary”. As we know, it is the judgment of the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso on the defense of cultural exception in the negotiations between the European Union and the United States of America to reach a free agreement -exchange. Let us situate his point precisely. In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Barroso said that the refusal to bring culture into the negotiation "is part of an anti-globalisation agenda which I consider to be completely reactionary". By saying this, he is directly targeting the position of the government of the French Republic. This two days after the Council of European Ministers adopted the Commission's mandate in these negotiations. For Barroso, states and their leaders can be scorned and insulted bluntly.
Barroso doesn't even get the recognition he should for Francois Hollande. He should know, however, that the defense of cultural exception, as legitimate as it is, was only a gnawing bone launched by Hollande to hide his support for the annexation of the European Union by the United States. . Hollande has indeed swallowed everything else, starting with the very principle of a free trade agreement and its extension to health or environmental standards. He only brandished culture as a totem to dodge the debate on the rest of this disastrous project: GMOs, beef with hormones, chicken washed with chlorine, financial deregulation, legal and financial protection granted to multinationals, etc.
The arrogance of liberals knows no bounds. In addition to Barroso, Karel de Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, the one who will be in charge of negotiations with the United States, also went there with his provocation against the sovereign decision of the States. Officially the Council of Ministers has decided to exclude audiovisual services from the scope of negotiation. But the ink was not yet dry that Karel de Gucht was already on the attack. Here is what he said: “I will listen to what our American interlocutors are telling us and, if they want a discussion on the audiovisual sector, we will have this discussion”. You read correctly, for the European Commission, the wishes of the United States are orders. You have been warned.
That's not all. Karel de Gucht went further. He swings. About the French Minister for Foreign Trade, he said: "I suppose that for her too, except for culture [of the field of negotiations], it is not final because she attended the same discussions as me. ".
Therefore, the question deserves to be asked: Did François Hollande smoke everyone out? Culture is not really excluded from the negotiation? As we speak, we have to content ourselves with contradictory words between the French government and the European Commission. Indeed, the negotiating mandate adopted by the ministers of the 27 EU Member States is still not public. The Commission simply issued a memo as a press release. The use of the French language already belongs to the past of the European Union, we must work on a document in English. It is available on the Commission's website but it is only a summary of the negotiating mandate.
It doesn't help to know who from Holland or the Commission is lying. Because the expression used in the memo and by the commissioner is difficult to translate into French. What does the memo from the commission say? He says that a compromise has been found on audiovisual services. Then he says, “There is no carve-out on audiovisual services. (…) As the EU legislation in this area still has to be developed, it has been agreed that audiovisual services are presently not part of the mandate, but that the Commission has the possibility to come back to the Council with additional negotiating directives at a later stage”. The artist La Parisienne liberated, onher blogon Mediapart, translated the passage as follows: “There is no carve-out on audiovisual services (…) Since this area of European legislation is being developed, it was agreed that audiovisual services would not be included in this mandate, but that the Commission would have the possibility of coming back to the Council at a later stage with additional negotiating directives” .
Audiovisual services are therefore excluded from the negotiations “for now”, and only because the drafting of European legislation has not been completed. The essential point is that the exclusion is not final as requested by SACEM at the start. The deception is revealed by the Commission itself. It communicated the extract from the mandate on this specific point: "The Commission, according to the Treaties, may make recommendations to the Council on possible additional negotiating directives on any issue, with the same procedures for adoption, including voting rules, as for this mandate”. In French, this gives approximately: "In accordance with the Treaties, the Commission may make recommendations to the Council on the possibility of additional negotiating directives on all subjects, with the same adoption procedures, including voting rules, only for the adoption of this mandate". Holland therefore lied. Audiovisual services are therefore not definitively excluded. The Commission may at any time request their reintroduction into the scope of the negotiation. However, in this case, the decision will be taken unanimously.
More importantly, the phrase "there is no carve out on audiovisual services" raises questions. Here again, I refer my readers to what La Parisienne librée writes: “If my dictionaries have not deceived me, the notion of “carve-out” in English refers to the field of sculpture. "To carve-out" is to make a cut, to dig, to engrave. Thus, it would seem that the negotiators did not really cut into the project of a large transatlantic market to exclude audiovisual services, contrary to what France was asking for and what it announces that it has obtained. (…) In reality, if the Commission had taken the trouble to translate its report into French, we would probably not be far from: “audiovisual services are not excluded from the negotiations”. It reveals that during Commissioner de Gucht's press conference after the meeting of trade ministers, the interpreter translated the expression "it's not a carve-out" as "it is not an exclusion". .
The memo from the commission must be translated into French.And I demand that the negotiating mandate be made public in the official language of the French Republic. Thus, everyone will be able to judge on parts. I specify that whatever the exact wording on audiovisual services, I will remain absolutely opposed to the very principle of these negotiations which makes Europe and France vulgar subsidiaries of American multinational firms. And which enshrines free trade as a way of organizing trade while I plead for cooperation and solidarity protectionism.
“I am certain that our services knew”
Interview published in Metronews on July 2, 2013
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, co-president of the Parti de Gauche, pleads for the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into espionage by the United States.
The British daily The Guardian claimed on Sunday that France was among the 38 “targets” monitored by the American NSA. Like Christiane Taubira, do you think this is "an unspeakable act of hostility"?
This is an assault! The USA despises the French! You have to look him in the face and reply
Could the French and European governments ignore such practices? Were they naïve?
I'm sure our services knew. Why did the ministers do nothing? How can our reference media ignore what a German daily knows? In both cases this raises serious questions. A parliamentary commission of inquiry into North American espionage would be welcome. As for the president, his tender ideological complicity with the democrats of the United States blinds him. They made fun of him! His naivety is dangerous.
"We cannot accept this type of behavior between partners and allies", declared François Hollande on Monday. Do you think his reaction was up to par?
If, as usual, the blows of the chin are not followed by any action, France will be weakened. The USA will believe that everything is permitted with us. Be careful, in the big leagues cowardice has a price.
Should France consider sanctions? What is its leeway?
We are in self-defense! You have to be respected. In his time, Charles Pasqua had expelled 47 North American diplomats!Negotiations for the transatlantic market must be stopped immediately since the secrecy of European positions has been violated.
You propose political asylum in France for Edward Snowden. Can we afford such distrust of the United States?
Snowden has done a huge service to our national security and to Europe. He is in danger we must help him. In this case, political asylum is our tradition. Otherwise the United States will wipe its feet on us!
"And what's more, they're spying on us!" »
Excerpt from the blog post “It’s more believable in a novel than in real life! », July 3, 2013
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And they're spying on us!
Imagine that Cuba spied on two million French people a day! That Venezuela hacked the computers of the delegation of France and the European Union to the United Nations! I say no more. Parliament and its Sakharov Prize are ridiculous, not for their constant crude and one-sided bias, but above all for the discrepancy with reality. Again, in this area as in all others. What we have been experiencing since the revelations of the German newspaper "Der Spiegel" on North American espionage is an incredible revelation in the eyes of millions of people. Naturally everything will be smothered in a few days. But it will still be too late. A massive delegitimization of the mythical role of the United States as "guardian of democracy and individual freedom" will have profoundly affected society. The powerful will reassure themselves as they do whenever they believe they have solved a problem because their media no longer talk about it. But popular sentiment will continue its work. In the specific case, the tradition of distrust of North Americans is very deep in France. From Gaullists to Communists, to all shades of Republicans and anti-capitalists, we all know what to think about them. The thin superficial layer of Atlanticists who hold the upper hand in the media, politics and finance reassure themselves cheaply when they take these lockdowns for consent! Of course, we are going to work on this feeling to give it a positive content of aspiration to sovereignty.
How did the United States get here?For my part, I believe that the disease that affects them comes from afar, that its roots are very deep. But for now, as a good materialist, I will stick to the real relationships that are the basis of events. They have nothing of a drift but they are a constant state. The Cold War not only disfigured the society of the supposed “socialist camp”. It ravaged its conqueror just as much. We have seen and we remember that a director of the KGB, Andropov, had become for a short time the supreme leader of the USSR. But we forget that Bush senior had been director of the CIA. Isn't it striking, moreover, that the latter came out of his reserve to defend the kind of intrusions that have just been denounced and to recall that he was the creator? The USSR collapsed, and with it much of the cohesion of the security and espionage systems that held it together. Conversely, their North American counterparts triumphed and exulted in the USA. I read that 19 security agencies existed there in parallel. So many bureaucracies hungry for subsidies, proving their usefulness by one-upmanship and manipulations which we understand without difficulty are vital for the survival of each of them. This competition is deeply encysted in the workings of the entire US administration. For me, North American society is no longer really a political democracy, and has been for a long time. However, even if the paranoid invasion of espionage has no rationality, the revelation that is made of it cannot be considered as one episode among others. Of course, we already knew a lot of things since the Swift affair where we had already caught the North Americans in the process of monitoring all European bank accounts. We had also seen the case of secret prisons, and that of the obligation to provide the personal data of travelers to the United States. But this time the pieces of the puzzle came together before everyone's eyes. We have seen recognized by the authorities of each of our countries a level of espionage unprecedented in history! We have seen its distribution confirmed to the individuals least involved in a preventive way, as in an Orwelian dictatorship! We have seen confirmed the storage and surveillance of millions of private information thanks to the help of social networks that each of us naïvely feeds. This time, it goes beyond anything that was previously considered pure delirium. I don't know if a group of "conspirators" has ever denounced a reality as murky as this. Therefore, the revelations that we owe to Mr. Snowden are decisive for our security and sovereignty. They make him a global hero of the freedom and sovereignty of the peoples of the world. I use this pompous designation to refer to Mr. Snowden to mirror all that we have had to endure for years of pre-pre-pre-preaching from North Americans and their media puppets about the freedom of the world. which would be protected by the United States.
I add more because others subtract.I have seen how the vocabulary has evolved. During the Cold War, heroes crossing from east to west were greeted with great fanfare and the entire universe was called upon to admire them. They were "freedom fighters", "resisters" and so on. The comedy has continued into the contemporary period with second-hand heroes touching more B-movie than peplum. So about Cuba as I have just recalled. On this level, the heroes of the “resistance” and the “free world” have become characters of very small fabric, some being even pure delinquents, unconvincing in the role for which they are paid. Real heroes are treated quite differently. Today, at the best of times, the real heroes, those who really risk their necks, kidnapping, poisoning, clandestine prisons, months of confinement in an endless temporary asylum, are no more than “whistleblowers”. Assange and Snowden will not be entitled to the tearful celebrations to which a character as interloping as this shirtless Cuban, Mr. Farinas, is called. " Alert launcher " ! The understatement says it all about the gossip society in which we live. Everything about the lowering of the so-called great consciences that overlook it. I am amused to see the guardians of the temple already combining the feigned indignation from which they cannot escape with virtuous warnings against the risk of “slippage” in “primary anti-Americanism”! We feel the hearts of sheep who are frightened by their audacity and look nervously over their shoulders after having criticized… These will soon receive reinforcement.
The technique to cushion the impact of the turpitudes revealed by “whistleblowers” is very well developed. As I write, the North American services are working hard to mobilize all their agents to mount the counter-offensive that will bury the case. The first salvo has already been fired: see "Le Monde" and "Liberation". The two agree to relativize the facts, that is to say the gravity of the guilt of the USA and the meaning of what is a society which carries within it such a system of generalized surveillance. “Le Monde” plays it in the mode of angry tenderness: “Uncle Sam is behaving very, very badly! “Twice “very” is one too many to be serious. "Liberation" amplifies the style "pouet, pouet, larirette" which is the mark that its meager 38,000 daily readers savor: everything is funny, nothing is serious. The front page begins with a laborious "the networks of anger" pastiche of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", before a new burst of laughter on page two: "Holland pinches Obama's ears"! Wow! wow! wow! The joke coats a far more vicious commodity whose summary is in the title that crosses page two: “In France we do the same thing”. As usual, that's not really what François Géré, of the Institute for Strategic Analysis, says, whose interview is published under this title. Putting the scandal into perspective by trivializing it is still what a cynic, Cédric Thomas, known as “Jean Quatremer”, does a page later. His paper is surtitled: “the Union has known for more than forty years that it is being watched by American services” and titled “When Europe turned a blind eye to wiretapping”. In short, since everyone knew on the one hand and that on the other hand, nothing will change, why continue to make all this noise on the subject? It is true that to trivialize the present, Quatremer must heavily burden the past at the cost of an overall fresco where he even comes to accuse Israel of having cast microphones in the concrete of the construction of the headquarters of the European Council of ministers. Strange… One fire must mask the other. Information taken from the horse's mouth, this systematic relativization, this is the argument that North American diplomats have been serving up to whoever wants to listen to them since Sunday...
Muddying the message of the massive US abuse of power is the order. The UMP Lefebvre, elected by the French in the United States, dilutes the sauce in the traditional way “let’s wait for explanations from the USA, etc., etc. On the Snowden side, he is credited with applying for asylum in Russia, failing to specify that he is also presenting it to 21 other states. It's a good way to associate Putin's name with his. Without forgetting the insurmountable gag of Madame Le Pen's advertisers, according to which we would follow in her footsteps in her requests. That she spoke after the Greens and I does not bother the interviewees under influence. What matters is putting another infamous equal sign between Snowden's defense and the National Front. All this undermining is intended to hold the line during the few days when the emotion of public opinion must be channeled. Then, the major reference media will quickly move on. Finally, in the comet's tail, we will learn that Snowden is suspected of a sex crime or something like that as was the case for Assange. Those whose honor and duty it would be to take over and carry the work of the "whistleblowers" higher will be the first to throw the shovelful of burial.
For the rest, we will remain on our hunger. If "Jean Quatremer" is right when he accuses Israel and the United States of having cast microphones in European concrete, which I discover, if the facts that he summarizes elsewhere are proven, and many indeed were known, how can we believe that the French counterintelligence services knew nothing? So why didn't the ministers say anything? And if the "Spiegel" knows and publishes what it knows, how can we believe that "Le Monde" does not know? To others! We cannot believe it. We should rather ask ourselves questions about the way this newspaper has been handling this kind of business for some time. The so-called reference daily never “takes out” any business again. He is content to repeat and comment on the revelations made by others. But why does he have to leave behind the embarrassing feeling of wanting to stifle what he knows? Yet this is the unpleasant impression he gives each time a scandal erupts involving the United States of America! Each time it is the same game. It is announced that a group of major ethical and independent newspapers are in possession of decisive information. It is announced that they will guarantee a sincere and verified publication. Then… A few names appear and, presto, pass nutmeg! Then there is nothing more. The names given are also chosen with care, the dead are welcome there, and in any case no follow-up is given. Remember that full-page story about the valiant reporters from Le Monde arriving in Madrid to do the colossal job of drinking coffee with colleagues who then handed them lists of tax evaders. Buddy! The job to do! In short, apart from talking about them and giving a few names without then doing any investigation, what? Nothing ! And Julian Assange's telegrams? What happened to them after a first release of secondary names? Nothing neither. Himself, Julien Assange, supplier of information, was literally abandoned in his refuge at the Embassy of Ecuador in London. This is to the point where one has to wonder if, in fact, this whole system of handing over documents to "big newspapers" is not intended to block information through those who are supposed to make it known and understood!
Sunday, while my train was traveling back from Nîmes, I consulted my comrades from the Left Party. It was a question of defining a position to propose on what we had just learned about the revelation by the newspaper "Der Spiegel" of the generalized espionage in which the United States of America is engaged on millions of citizens in Europe and on our states and institutions. We agreed to mark the seriousness of it. And to draw consequences for the news. Three decisions.First, request an immediate halt to negotiations on the Grand Marché Transatlantique. It's a retaliatory measure of course. It's about being respected. But above all it is a question of taking seriously what has already been said by the European Commission itself on the subject. Indeed, we were told that the content of the negotiating mandate should remain secret for the effectiveness of the talks. At this time, therefore, the only ones who know nothing officially are the parliamentarians and the citizens since, for their part, thanks to espionage, the United States knows exactly what to expect. What is the point of discussing further on this basis? We thought of proposing the launch of a petition on the subject to ask for the negotiation to be stopped. Then we agreed that logic wanted us to learn the whole lesson from the Assange case. No question of letting the situation become humanly insoluble as is the case with him. It is up to us to offer Snowden political asylum in a European country. And do not leave it to the fact that, again, it is on a Latin American country like Ecuador that bears all the burden of the problem and the challenge in the United States. The subject had just entered the news. But since Friday in my speeches at the two parties in which I participated in Perpignan and Lézan in the Gard, I raised the conscientious objection that I believe necessary to oppose before negotiating with the United States. The espionage case considerably reinforces this approach. What is it about ?
The conscientious objection I oppose is, in fact, a call for awareness. How often is the argument of human rights a prerequisite for commercial negotiation. In the case of the United States all this seems forgotten, as if the United States did not pose serious problems from the point of view of human rights. Everything happens as if bipartisanship were enough to make a fundamental difference, in any case enough not to ask any more questions. Obviously we can decide that the question of the death penalty has no place as a preliminary. We will therefore leave aside. But after all, is this a sufficient reason to also pass over in silence the problem posed by the existence of secret CIA prisons practicing kidnappings and torture, those which exist in Afghanistan, Iraq and Thailand, but also in Poland and Romania, without forgetting of course and especially the Guantanamo torture center opened illegally for 12 years. I fail to understand why, for some, this fact would be disconnected from the rest of North American reality, from its vision of the relationship to punishment and individual freedom. How can we forget that the USA has the world record of people in prison! Their 2.3 million prisoners constitute 1% of the adult population! This is eight times the French rate. And it is also six times the Chinese rate! This is not enough to point out the distance that separates us from the value system they practice and that European leaders pretend to ignore. The United States are indeed also the champions of the non-application of international law! Perhaps we can consider it as secondary that they refused to sign the convention banning anti-personnel mines and that they did not ratify the convention on the International Criminal Court. This is not my opinion, but I admit that people tell me that it is not a central subject that makes a model of society. But I cannot accept the remark for the areas considered by us, in principle, as foundational. Yet our governments do not ask any questions in the United States when they have not ratified the international convention on the Rights of the Child, nor that for the Rights of the Disabled. And what relates to people in a state of weakness also applies to other rights that we also consider essential, particularly in the case of these six out of eight fundamental conventions of the International Labor Organization. And not least! Thus the convention on freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize, that on the right to organize and collective bargaining, that on equal pay for men and women, that concerning discrimination or on the minimum age work ! All have been signed by all 28 Member States of the European Union. Wouldn't it be normal for this to be a prerequisite for negotiating the formation of a large single market where all these questions have a direct impact on the subjects under discussion? The same reasoning applies in the field of commitments in defense of the ecosystem. The United States, unlike the Europeans, refused to sign the UN convention on biodiversity but also the Kyoto protocol to fight against the greenhouse effect!Finally, let's not ask ourselves why any president of the French Republic cannot meet Chinese leaders without being harassed with complaints so that he does not fail to raise the question of Human Rights in this country and that nothing is ever demanded of such in connection with the United States . We all know why! But let us ask ourselves if we will find a better opportunity to advance these rights in the world and in the United States better than in the campaign against the Great Transatlantic Bargain Treaty.
“The arbitral tribunal, the triumph of the extraordinary law of money”
Excerpt from the blog post "Hot, cold, ups and downs" of July 24, 2013
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In this state of mind, the next day I was in Guayaquil [in Ecuador]. Admittedly, it was a new conference alongside the Minister of Foreign Affairs and several experts attached to the review "Linéa Sur" published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this country. But before heading for the room where the speeches would be held, I made my detour through the city cemetery. I had an appointment with the grave of a national hero who interests me closely. This is Eloyo Alfaro Delgado, a very particular president from Ecuador's past. This man established the separation of the Church from the State, marriage and civil divorce, secular and free compulsory primary education. To complete the wink he gives us from the depths of history, let us note that he declared a moratorium on the national debt until the lenders lowered the interest rate to which they condemned this small country. . From now on the current president, Rafael Corréa, often refers to this historical figure, sometimes more than to Simon Bolivar. We understand why. Walking through the alleys of this cemetery, towards the promontory where the statue and the tomb of the character stand, I first tasted these rays of sunshine that I rediscovered. Guayaquil is on the coast. Then I let myself go to the music of deep time. What efforts, what struggles, what backlashes so that the common thread of humanism continues to run through the history of peoples. A story for the rest so banally dominated by the powerful blinded and brutal of all times and all latitudes. Without forgetting their minions and executors of low works. There is only one of the fights of this President Alfaro that it will not have had to be resumed! For the moment, here, it is we who have the hand. Again we close fake schools, of course private, pathetic avatars of the commercialization of education, and we open public schools. New scholarships are given to students so that they can go and learn elsewhere what cannot be learned locally and return to the country to put their knowledge at the service of all. The so-called “homosexual healing centers” promoted in the past are closed and condemned! And as usual, here we come up against the beef front of right-wing parties established in their unequal certainties, social-liberal pharmacies and the media party, the shine brush of the powerful. Leaving the cemetery, I passed a cat who was quietly warming up. I am very fond of these animals and I did not forget to greet this one. His indifferent gaze reminded me that while there are several people in each person, there are several worlds in our world. It's all about choosing where you want to be and who you want to be. Definitely cats give ideas.
The central theme of our conference was less philosophical. It was about the new international legal order.One issue in particular was presented: that of arbitration tribunals. Indeed, it is now a clearly displayed trend, in all the agreements that the powerful obtain, that in the event of a dispute between an investor and a State, it is not the justice of the State in question which decides but an arbitration tribunal. private.Method expanding. A study by the Belgian NGO Corporate Europe Observatory counts some 450 cases of arbitration between a State and a company in the world in 2011 against only 38 in 1996. Many French people discovered what these arbitration tribunals were on the occasion of the Tapie case. The cases in which this type of body has already intervened and the decisions taken are clearly of a nature to worry everyone. It is in the tens of billions that amounts to the compensation claimed from the States following protests or complaints from private companies without the reason for their request being concerned with any aspect whatsoever of the situation or the reasons for the claim. 'general interest. Thus, the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, one of the main managers of the German nuclear fleet, is today demanding 3.5 billion euros from the German state after its decision to phase out nuclear power. Canada has been grappling with these kinds of difficulties since banning shale gas exploration and development. The Company concerned, Lone Pine, a North American, has just filed an arbitration appeal to claim 250 million dollars from Canada, which has just withdrawn the company's oil and gas exploitation permit. Already in 1997, an arbitration allowed the Ethyl group to impose on Canada to pay 13 million dollars in compensation for “economic damage”. In reality it was the prohibition of MMT, a chemical added to gasoline, causing diseases and fouling of vehicles. Finally, we should also mention that Canada was also sued by the SD Myers Company, which contested the limitation on the export of PCB-polluted products.
Why cite Canada?Because it knows all these difficulties because it signed an agreement with the United States of America on the model that the latter now want to sign with the European Union as part of the negotiations for the Greater Transatlantic Market. You will therefore not be surprised to learn that the mandate given to the European Commission by the Heads of State of the European Union is in terms that make you fear the worst. See instead: “the agreement should aim to provide an effective and state-of-the-art investor-State dispute resolution mechanism”. Another undemocratic decision since the French Parliament had explicitly decided “that the use of a specific mechanism for settling disputes between investors and States be excluded from the mandate to preserve the sovereign rights of States”. In my view, this will be a fundamental debate in the coming months as we realize what the European Commission and the United States of America are really discussing. Here I learn about the subject because Ecuador too has had to suffer from the judgments of these so-called arbitration tribunals in conditions of such aggressive bias that it is sometimes hard to believe. Rafael Corréa did not hide his contempt for these authorities whose authority he does not recognize. Under these conditions, the meeting I attended in Guayaquil was excellent preparation for me given the number of case studies that were presented.
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“At the top of Alba”
Excerpt from the blog post "On the trail of the missing leaders" of August 6, 2013
I participated as a special guest at the Alba Summit held in Guayaquil at the end of July. My participation in this political event unfolded as follows. First, I went to the summit of social movements in the Alba countries. At the request of the organizers, I presented a conference on the issue of transnational corporations and arbitration tribunals. This is for me the major question of the international order that is being built at the moment. And this is very especially the case for countries that intend to control the activity of companies on their territory, whether in terms of social or ecological standards. The next day, I was invited to take my place in the large plenary hall as an observer, alongside the delegations of the Member States of Alba. And finally, I had the honor of once again being an observer at the plenary meeting table where the text of the conclusions of this summit was finalized. I do not intend to summarize his work or even comment on it. I realized that there were real discussions and that they were sometimes close between the presidents. How could I have done otherwise? As soon as the work began, Rafael Corréa declared that the document of conclusions which was proposed to the Heads of State was far too timid, far too technocratic and did not really pose the political problems of the moment. Under these conditions, everything was rewritten between the morning and the end of the afternoon. I was then witnessing a spectacle quite unusual for me, the European. The text was indeed one last time modified in plenary with the help of a projection of it on a giant screen. I will only give some general impressions.
The first to recall that Alba was createdas a political unit in order to respond to the attempt of the United States of America to constitute a large market between them and the whole of the Latin America, ALCA. The Alba was initially a structure of resistance and it was victorious insofar as the treaty of the North Americans was indeed rejected on the occasion of a historic summit where the Argentines made the final decision since it are they who welcomed him. No one will forget the image of George Bush Jr. exiting the back door of the meeting building after this diplomatic disaster.
The Alba is a proposal by Hugo Chavez. He was extremely present. We can even say it bluntly: it was around him that the collective dynamic was built. He took the time to phone, to discuss the time needed with each of the heads of state. In this way, he had succeeded in giving a concrete human dimension to this collective. It is quite obvious that his absence creates a very great void, especially in this essential dimension of trust which confers authority and a capacity for impetus. At this time, in this role, he is not replaced. Without him, Alba must find new means of regulation. We can see that there is goodwill in this area between heads of state. It is not the easiest because the men in question are very strong personalities hardened by an implacable struggle against the local oligarchies, the conspiracies of the North Americans, and an abject media harassment of insults, lies and manipulations. It will therefore take some time for the Alba sans Chavez system to stabilize as a human collective. For my part, I believe that it is the events that will decide by the obligation they will create to find themselves united politically to face the aggressions of the oligarchies/USA/media trio.
My second remark concerns the atmosphere around this meeting. For the summit of Alba, which brings together nine States, there is not the usual construction of an entrenched camp with a fence, a large army of police, soldiers, helicopters and all the great unpacking which recalls the extreme cut between the common mortals and rulers. Here, everyone comes together, social movements and governments, for street marches and closing meetings. And my last remark at this time will relate to the text which was adopted. Nicolas Maduro was right to say that it is the most advanced international text available to this period since it is the only one to speak of general interest, public service and opposition to free trade treaties. For my part, I was very happy to see the theme of arbitration courts very strongly supported by Ecuadorians at this time.I believe that this is an essential question in the new world legal order at this stage of the great neoliberal regression. We are going to have to know about them in Europe in the context of the negotiation of the Greater Transatlantic Market since the North Americans and the European Commission are in favor of recognizing the authority of such courts in the event of a dispute between states and investors. In this sense the Alba is a direct support to our fight with its text and its political commitment for an egalitarian international legal order.
“Manuel Valls can be stopped”
Excerpt from the blog post “Before going before the jury and really going home” from August 31, 2013
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I had the opportunity to talk about it [the theory of the “clash of civilizations”] again at the Estivales du Front de Gauche during the workshop on NATO in which I participated. Because the idea that there is an “enemy within” [as Manuel Valls said] has radical strategic consequences. It leads to confusion between the military tasks of Defense and the tasks of internal security, between the missions of the army and those of the police and intelligence. If there is an "enemy within" then we are at war. And if we are at war, then it is the army that must be mobilized. And to push the logic to the point of absurdity, it is the military courts that should be competent, as in the United States. This police drift of military doctrine must absolutely be combated. It is about fidelity to republican and secular principles.The independence of France at the geopolitical level is also concerned in the context. Because, of course, the psychological conditioning that this discourse works on forms a whole with the rest of the preparation for the Great Transatlantic Market, for the military strategy that accompanies it, for the normalization that it demands. Valls is not an epiphenomenon.
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“Syria as an indicator of the (new) French evil”
Excerpt from the blog post “The Syrian Shipwreck of the Solferinians” of September 4, 2013.
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The Atlanticist current [in the Socialist Party] has always been very strong, but its influence has often expressed itself in a more cautious way insofar as an extremely constructed and very largely majority ideological resistance took care of it.L Atlanticism is now the party line. This is proven by the signature of François Hollande after discussions at the NATO summit in Chicago a few months after his election, when he placed France under the protection of North American anti-missile missiles, forgetting deterrence. This was confirmed when he capitulated unconditionally when the Germans refused to postpone the opening of the discussion with the North Americans on the "Great Transatlantic Market" even though the espionage of those this on all the countries of the European Union had been proven by the revelations of Snowden. Believing to anticipate what the American general staff had decided, he threw himself headlong into one-upmanship at About Syria. All in all, this is a fundamental change. Not only is there no longer an exception for French socialists in the international social democratic movement, but it is France itself as a nation, as it has affirmed itself in the constant principles that it has sustained to this day, which has just been discontinued.
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Great Transatlantic Market: Are we all going to become Americans?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon guest of the show “C’est ça l’Europe?! » October 6, 2013
"Are we all going to become Americans?" – On October 6, 2013, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was invited to answer this question on the program “C’est ça l’Europe?!”, presented by Paul Germain (TV5MONDE) and Isabelle Huysen (RTBF.be ). The co-president of the Left Party was able to give his opinion on the large transatlantic market (GMT), also called “USA-EU free trade treaty”.
Interparliamentary delegations without power
Explanation of vote on the Europe blog for the plenary session from 7 to 10 October 2013
I abstained on this text. Here is my explanation of vote:
The considerable resources mobilized for all these interparliamentary activities are inversely proportional to the real powers of the Parliament, if only to control the international action of the Commission and the Council.< b>The opacity in the negotiation of the transatlantic agreement is a perfect illustration of this.We can multiply the instances, meetings and resolutions but without effective change in the organization of powers in the Treaties, all that has no significance for citizens. I refrain. In fact, this makes no sense or use.
CIA prisons in Europe
Explanation of vote on the Europe blog for the plenary session from 7 to 10 October 2013
I voted for this text. Here is my explanation of vote:
This resolution rightly deplores the intolerable and total inertia of the EU institutions and several Member States to stop the CIA's programs on European territory, and in particular the illegal detentions and transfers of prisoners in Poland, Romania or Lithuania. While the Parliament had already demanded precise explanations a year ago concerning these programs which violate international law, no explanation has been provided by the EU institutions. This report rightly reiterates these requirements, which are in line with those formulated by the UN. So quick to teach human rights lessons around the world, what is the EU waiting for to put an end to the human rights abuses committed by the United States of America on its own territory?I regret that this resolution does not propose to stop the negotiation of the transatlantic trade agreement until the illicit practices of the United States have not ceased, whether it is the secret prisons of the CIA or the espionage of the NSA. /b>I nevertheless vote for this resolution which keeps up the pressure against these unacceptable practices.
Great Transatlantic Market: the negotiation of all the dangers
Dossier by Laurent Mafféïs published on the Left Party website, October 9, 2013
Without any consultation of the people and despite the revelation of spying on European institutions by the United States, negotiations on the Greater Transatlantic Market (known as the TTIP Treaty) began this summer in the greatest secrecy.
Trampled transparency
We will remember that on June 14, the trade ministers of the 27 EU states accepted a secret negotiating mandate from the European Commission. Apart from an illusory protection of the cultural exception, which could be called into question during the negotiation, the mandate of the Commission tramples on the other requirements which could have been formulated by the Parliaments. The French Parliament had, for example, asked that private arbitration mechanisms allowing companies to evade state laws be excluded from the mandate. This is not the case and these destructive mechanisms are still on the negotiating agenda, without the French government opposing them in the European Council.
After the coup de force of the adoption of this secret negotiation mandate, the revelation of widespread spying on the EU by the United States at the beginning of the summer could have led to believe that the negotiations were going to be postponed. In any case, this is what both the French government and the European Commission pretended to announce. Vice-President of the European Commission Viviane Reding thus affirmed at the beginning of July that " we cannot negotiate on a large transatlantic market if there is the slightest doubt that our partners are targeting eavesdropping on the offices of European negotiators ". However, as Jean-Luc Mélenchon points out in the two questions to the European Commission that he asked this summer as an MEP, no explanation or guarantee from the US authorities has been given by the European Commission since. Like a steamroller, the negotiations for the transatlantic trade treaty began from July 8 to 12 in Washington. And they must continue from October 7 to 11 in Brussels.
Secret negotiations
According to the meager information provided by the Commission, the discussion immediately focused on a very broad scope of around twenty areas that should be covered by the TTIP Trade Treaty. It is impossible to know exactly what these negotiations consist of and the positions actually defended by the European Commission. The report meetings planned by the Commission to inform the European Parliament are masquerades of democracy as Jean-Luc Mélenchon pointed out in a new question posed to the European Commission on September 26. Not only are these minutes reserved solely for MEPs who are members of the European Parliament's Committee on Trade, but they are made behind closed doors in English without translation into the official languages of the Union, nor even into the working languages of the Commission which are French and German.
US lobbies on the offensive
During the summer, multiple US mercantile lobbies got underway and confirmed the dangers that we had already pointed out before the start of negotiations. A leader of the US Chamber of Commerce explained that "the American side should clearly explain the dangers of unnecessary social and environmental regulation and the 'right to regulate' desired by the European parliament". This position of the business community corresponds to that defended by the United States government, through its Department of Commerce (USTR), the main organizer of the negotiations. Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz explained earlier this summer that "the USTR office, which represents business interests, will almost surely push for the lowest common denominator, inciting a race to the bottom rather than upwards. This is evidenced by official Commerce Department positions in many areas such as agriculture. A report by this organization thus states that “[European] measures relating to the import and use of genetically modified products constitute major obstacles to trade. The NGO Friends of the Earth also warned of the activism of the US chemical industry lobbies: "The transatlantic free trade agreement will give the chemical industries and other multinational firms the weapon ultimate way to destroy the progress we have made in the EU and in various states in the US to protect human health and the environment from toxic products. »
Renunciations
Faced with this powerful offensive of American capitalism, not only does the Commission not resist but it began to give ground during the summer. While pretending to resist the ban on hormone-treated beef in Europe, European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht, for example, gave in during the first negotiating session in July on chlorine-washed chicken. As a perfect liberal, he cynically explained his position: “We could leave the choice to Europeans, via clear labeling systems. Let's not demonize [the bleach-washed chicken]. I trust consumers. For example, if I buy a chicken, I would obviously take a Bresse chicken. Thanks to the European Commission and if this agreement is not stopped, low-cost chickens with bleach will therefore surge tomorrow on European markets by aggravating the difficulties of the entire European poultry industry, already in crisis today.
Resist disaster
This renunciation is only the first of a long list that will follow in the next negotiation sessions if the European Commission is not arrested. A memo on the Commission's website thus explains that "in current transatlantic trade relations, the most important obstacle to trade is not the customs duty paid, but the barriers to trade" beyond the border », such as, for example, the different safety or environmental standards applicable to cars. By application of this logic, the outcome of the negotiations can only be disastrous for the peoples, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz pointed out at the start of the summer: "The probability that what will emerge from the discussions to come may serve the interests of ordinary Americans are weak; the outlook for ordinary citizens of other countries is even bleaker. »
The resistance of the people is therefore more than ever on the agenda to prevent this disaster. It involves active citizen information on a project that the mainstream media largely ignores. And by the sanction in the European elections of the governments and parties, of the right as social democrats, which built this monster.
No to the EU-Canada Free Trade Agreement
Note from the Europe blog of October 22, 2013
A new free trade partnership between the EU and Canada (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) is concluded. J.M. Barroso and Canadian Prime Minister S. Harper have confirmed this.
This agreement is the precursor of the Greater Transatlantic Market currently being negotiated with the United States. We can say that nothing can be signed between the United States and Europe that is less favorable to multinationals than what has just been signed between Europe and Canada. Yet this agreement is signed in the greatest secrecy. Only negotiators and businessmen had access to the text. But we already know that it will have major repercussions for European agriculture, public services, the rights granted to multinationals, environmental and health rules, access to medicines, etc.
This agreement enshrines the superiority of the rights of companies over those of citizens or consumers. In general, it enshrines the pre-eminence of private interests over the defense of the general interest. Indeed, it includes the dispute settlement mechanism called “investor-state”. This mechanism is an intolerable attack on the sovereignty of States. It gives a company the right to sue a State or an infra-State body (region, municipality, etc.) if a regulation deprives it of expected benefits. This is already the case in Canada since the signing of NAFTA with the USA. It is thus the famous "arbitration courts", which will become the supreme body in the legal order as soon as the interest of a multinational is affected by an environmental or health decision.
I call for action to defeat this agreement with Canada.
SWIFT suspended after NSA spying
Explanation of vote on the Europe blog for the plenary session from 21 to 24 October 2013.
I voted for this text. Here is my explanation of vote:
This resolution has the merit of capturing the magnitude of the facts. It denounces the activities of the NSA with regard to direct access to financial messaging data and related data. She calls for a full technical investigation into the US government's unauthorized access to data contained in Swift servers on site; deploring moreover that no State has made the request.
Unfortunately this resolution is content to request the "suspension" of the SWIFT agreement, until a complete and exhaustive explanation of the facts of which the USA is accused. This does not suit us, we demand the total removal of the SWIFT system. We are calling more broadly for the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade Treaty to be halted. Despite this fundamental reservation, I vote for this text so that there is at least one document of Parliament against the activities of the USA against the freedom of peoples.
“NSA eavesdropping: Europe humiliated”
Excerpt from the note “European Council: political irresponsibility embodied” on the Europe blog, November 9, 2013
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While these leaders[European Council of Heads of State and Government which met on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 October in Brussels]say they are outraged by the wiretapping of all the peoples of Europe, and above all of themselves, they reaffirm "the close relationship that exists between Europe and the United States" and "the usefulness of the transatlantic partnership, "convinced that this partnership should be based on respect and trust" and believe in "cooperation between European and American secret services". This false naivety once again reveals the servility of these European leaders to the United States. Courageous but not reckless. Poodles torn between love and sulking.
Moreover, they once again invoked “the fight against terrorism” to better flout individual rights by rummaging through our personal data. No questioning of these odious programs is on the agenda. On the contrary: Angela Merkel and François Hollande have announced that they want to “conduct bilateral negotiations with the United States with a view to reaching an agreement on mutual relations in this area before the end of the year”. For the President of the European Council, Mr Van Rompuy, who came to present these conclusions to the European Parliament on Tuesday, there is no longer any need to worry since "the main person concerned, the Chancellor, is delighted and has contributed to the drafting of text ". If Mrs. Merkel is delighted…
(…)
Barroso does not assume the confrontation with the USA
Guest on LCI on November 12, 2013
On November 12, 2013 on LCI, I questioned José Manuel Barroso on the negotiations between the European Union and the United States of America, raising the fact that many European leaders have been spied on by the NSA, US agency. While José Manuel Barroso had himself condemned this espionage and denounced the methods of a “political police of a totalitarian country”, he wavered here, without ever answering my questions.
Rather than this transatlantic free trade agreement which will destroy thousands of jobs, what we need is solidarity protectionism, negotiated on a case-by-case basis with other States! Negotiations on the EU-US free trade agreement must stop!
The secrets of the Commission
Question to the Commission and the Council published on the Europe blog on 28 November 2013
We learn from the Danish magazine Notat that the Commission held a secret meeting on November 22 with representatives of the 28 Member States. How does the Commission justify the secret nature of this meeting? Who is she hiding from?
The purpose of this meeting was to develop a communication strategy to reassure people about the Greater Transatlantic Market under negotiation. It is a question of "defining the terms of the debate by communicating in a positive way" to "reduce fears and avoid a multiplication of doubts". Thus, by the Commission's own admission, the people reject this agreement. This is good news.So rather than working to bring this agreement to a successful conclusion, shouldn’t the Commission rather interrupt the negotiations?
The Commission justifies this need for communication by the perception of a weak position of the EU vis-à-vis the United States. But this confidential negotiation or the exact terms of the agreement are not known, neither to parliamentarians nor to the peoples of Europe, while at the same time the United States is spying on the institutions of the EU, places us in fact in a position of weakness.Does the Commission envisage at least informing parliamentarians about these negotiations to restore the balance of power?
The Great Transatlantic Match
"Agit-prop" video published on November 19, 2013 and replayed on the Télé de Gauche website on December 8, 2013
On the occasion of the Fête de l’Humanité 2013, the “cultural commandos” of the Parti de Gauche produced a filmed theater play to challenge the issues of the Grand Marché Transatlantique.
Expanded Transatlantic Partnership
Explanation of vote on the Europe blog for the plenary session from 10 to 13 December 2013
I voted against this text. Here is my explanation of vote:
This report proposes to further strengthen the transatlantic partnership between the EU and the United States and to integrate the southern shores of the Atlantic into it in the form of "triangular cooperation ". He grants blind satisfaction to the United States, including the least credible, such as welcoming "President Obama's renewed commitment to the fight against climate change". He welcomes the launch of negotiations for an EU-US free trade agreement and calls for strengthening the EU's partnership with NATO. This strategy of alignment with the United States and NATO places Europe in a deplorable geopolitical impasse. By advocating the creation of a common “geopolitical model” based on the integration of the two largest market economies, this report expresses an aggressive Western imperialism vis-à-vis the rest of the world and in particular China and Russia. I vote against.
Training on the Great Transatlantic Market
Videos published by Télé de Gauche on December 19, 2013 and reproduced on the Télé de Gauche website on December 22, 2013.
Raoul Marc-Jennar, member of the Left Party and Attac, is a Belgian essayist and holds a doctorate in political science. He organizes training conferences on the Grand Marché transatlantique throughout France. Here is the one he made in Paris in December 2013.
Chlorine Christmas Turkey
Europe blog post from December 19, 2013
As I have denounced on several occasions here, since July 2013, the European Commission has been engaged in negotiations with the United States of America in order to create a large liberalized market in the greatest secrecy.< /b>
This week is the third and last round of negotiations of this year on this Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT). Negotiations are therefore continuing while citizens and elected officials do not know the details, and the revelations of large-scale spying on European authorities and citizens by the services of the American National Security Agency (NSA ) have continued to multiply.
This week in Washington, low masses behind the backs of Europeans
The third round of negotiations on the GMT must complete the initial phase of estimating the respective positions on both sides of the Atlantic. Then the Commission and the United States will have to start reaching sectoral agreements.
They hope to capitalize on the momentum generated by securing the neoliberal World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on December 7 in Bali.
As is customary in these multilateral agreements, the first goal of negotiations is to get rid of thorny issues, including services, energy and raw materials. If they reach a common regulation in one of these fields, it will obviously be done on the basis of the lowest common denominator. Knowing that this is already Union policy, this bodes well for the worst. Because in all these areas, the USA has much less restrictive regulations on the ecological and social level.
On the question of services, North Americans are in favor of a “positive list”; only the services explicitly indicated are concerned by the agreement, whereas the European Commission would prefer to rely on the current version at the WTO in which the word "service" is left to a broad interpretation, thus covering all areas of the life. In this context, there would be no guarantee that the “French cultural exception” would be covered by the agreement. On services, the Barroso Commission, supported by the right and the social democrats, therefore defends, behind the backs of the people, an even more liberal position than that of the USA.
The North Americans intend to destroy the European REACH regulation on the use of chemicals in industry. On shale gas, the Commission constantly claims to be at the forefront with demanding environmental values, but intends to take advantage of these American gases exploited in particularly disastrous conditions. Moreover, what guarantees will the few European countries prohibiting it have, when the big companies want tomorrow to exploit our rocks?
US negotiator Dan Mullaney also continues to seek “the highest level of protection” for investors, which means that the North Americans will want to set up a dispute settlement” between States and companies, as in other treaties of this kind, where international private tribunals break down the labor, environmental and social rights existing in the States, while making them pay heavy fines.
Previous negotiations, the Commission more complacent with finance than the USA
The previous second round of negotiations, in Brussels, took place more than a month late. The United States was immersed in its budget crisis (shutdown), preventing Barack Obama's armada of negotiators from buying their plane tickets.
Discussions were finally able to take place, notably on financial services, to "strengthen financial stability". Between the EU and the United States, these “services” represent 60% of global banking activities. Cross-investments in equities and bonds amount to trillions of euros. But, across the Atlantic, the Dodd-Frank law on financial regulation was obtained after long procrastination between Democrats and Republicans, and is more restrictive than what exists in the EU.There is only the Union European Union to still believe in the benefits of frenzied liberalism. It therefore drags out decision-making, arguing that decisions should not be taken “at the last minute“, and in any case calls for “mutual consultations in advance in the event of any new financial measures which may significantly affect the supply of financial services” and a “joint review of existing rules to determine whether they create unnecessary barriers to trade”. And the very liberal Commission feared: "Without this framework, in a few years, when the crisis will be a thing of the past, there is a risk that financial regulation could once again be dominated by mainly national considerations, which once moreover will lead to regulatory divergence and open the door to financial instability”. The Commission takes the liberty of judging the actions of States with untold arrogance.
Labour law forgotten
If, on certain points, the Commission knows what it wants, on others, it does not have the beginning of the beginning of a will, in particular on labor law . Regarding the ratification of the conventions of the International Labor Organization, many of which have not been signed by the United States, "the Commission does not yet have a defined strategy on this point" [as the negotiator said in chief, Ignacio Bercero before the European Parliament on November 18]
Meanwhile, the Commission is organizing its propaganda
On 22 November, the Commission organized an informal meeting to explain to Commissioners how to speak positively about the GMT. Some documents concerning this meeting have been forwarded to the European Parliament and reveal its bad faith. The objective is "to ensure that the general public in each of the Member States of the EU has a general understanding of this GMT", "that is to say of an initiative which aims to deliver growth and jobs". This argument, chestnut of the Commission in all its free trade treaties, is based on a so-called independent report and highly criticized among economists. Regarding “anxiety around the potential impact on the European social model”, the Commission specifies “the process must also be sufficiently transparent to reduce fears and avoid a multiplication of doubts before the agreement is concluded”. When it comes to agreements on the agriculture of artichokes over 20 cm, total transparency is essential; when the file is eminently political, transparency is done bit by bit, and only in the interest of the Commission. This is a fine political principle.
Among the good resolutions for 2014 must therefore include a fierce fight against this GMT, the negotiations of which are likely to last another two years. The Commission plays the time card. Let us show them that people do not forget. The next negotiations should take place in March 2014.
Europe: the Great Transatlantic Market
Explanatory video on the GMT – Blog Europe, December 19, 2013
The Chevron Affair
Excerpt from a blog post from December 23, 2013
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The multinational [Chevron-Texaco] cites the State and the Ecuadorian government before an arbitration court. Perhaps my readers have already taken note of what these arbitration tribunals are. Arbitration is not justice. Because justice is based on the law which applies standards, and not on arrangements between the weak and the strong when they are cited before it. And the basis of the law is the sovereignty of the people who formulate it. This chain of ideas is well known. It describes democratic society as opposed to the order of the strongest. Until recently, arbitration courts were only seized of disputes between companies. They were therefore mainly responsible for achieving compromises. As early as 1991, in my book “Conquering Chaos” I pointed out the emergence and growing role of these private courts. I pointed to their no less growing claims to constitute the true international order protecting the powers of our time, which are the transnational corporations. To flesh out my argument, I wanted to report on the large number of cases handled by one of these courts based in Paris. He had made me reply that being just as private as the business dealt with, he had not realized it, even though I was asserting my status as a parliamentarian... But, from now on, these courts intervene between a State and a company on an autonomous legal basis that no people can validate, amend or cancel! The topicality of this question is as follows. In the large transatlantic market, the USA and the European Commission want to establish that the recourse in the event of a dispute between "investors" and States will be arbitration courts and not the national courts of the countries in question. . The French Parliament passed a motion saying the exact opposite. But as it went through a procedure that I will sum up with the formula “who does not say a word consents”, I am certain that, when the time comes, the regulars of the capitulation will all be there in serried ranks to accept the opposite. The commitment alongside the Ecuadorians in this case therefore has a virtue of popular education as much as two first salvos in a battle to come in our latitudes.
Finally, and perhaps above all, the case of pollution in Lago Agrio in Ecuador confronts, on a subject typically of general human interest, everyone in his place, on the one hand communities of citizens, on the other hand a democratic state and, finally, a major transnational corporation. Both the protagonists and the subject of the conflict are characteristic of our time. Here is staged an ecological crime. But it presents itself as a deliberate crime, both against the ecosystem and against the individual rights of the human beings who are involved.The ecological crime here takes on the dimension of a crime against humanity, since it strikes everyone indiscriminately in the specific register of human identity. In specific cases, the defense of the “polluter pays” principle finds new scope. The multinational Chevron is perfectly aware of the balance of power that we are establishing by bringing this matter to everyone's attention, without letting it be buried deep in the jungle of the small Ecuadorian state. No doubt this is the reason why she is unleashing an ecological image campaign in the international airports that I pass through... I will return soon, and in these columns, to the organization of the campaign which will be set up in Europe where she just started. Consider that these lines are already a call. You can pass it on by extracting them to alert your own personal networks.
The GMT against ecology
Debate on the GMT at the Fête de l’Humanité 2013, posted online on December 27, 2013 by Télé de Gauche
On the occasion of the 2013 Humanity Day, the Left Party organized a debate on the harmful effects of the Great Transatlantic Market in terms of ecology.
What is behind the Grand Marché Transatlantique?
Reading workshop organized and filmed by the Left Party and broadcast on January 7, 2014
The Left Party regularly organizes reading workshops on the Grand Marché Transatlantique. Here is an example, broadcast on January 7, 2014.
No to GMO corn in Europe!
Note on the Europe blog of January 16, 2014
A resolution adopted today in the European Parliament opposes the Commission's decision authorizing the placing on the market of genetically modified maize Zea mays L 1507. On this subject, I deplore the end of the moratorium which protected the Europe from this scourge. Moreover, the insistence of the Commission to authorize the placing on the market of GMO foods seems to me to be the prelude to the Grand Marché Transatlantique, which aims to flood the European market with these products.
“The Europe that is destroying us is plotting at full speed”
Excerpt from the blog post "Was De Gucht on the scooter", January 22, 2014
Since July last year, the European Commission and the United States have been negotiating the establishment of a Greater Transatlantic Market (GMT). For our common good, of course. Last December, a new round of this negotiation was held. In the greatest secrecy. For the good of all of us, of course. This secrecy is in fact the only power available to the European Commission. She clings to it! Above all, she fears that we will not be able to understand all the good that awaits us with this agreement. She fears a coalition of ingrates. That is to say on the North American side a “coalition of anti-GMT Democrats” and here a “populist exploitation of fears” against this agreement. The UMP and PS elites have already rallied. The Left Front and EELV are in opposition. In my opinion, this is a good basis for joint action. For my part, I would like it to materialize in the elections as well.
Of course, the Commission knows that if it said nothing, someone in an editorial office would find out. So she speaks (in globich, of course). A reassuring background noise. It also distributes documents (in globich, of course). "So technical, take a look coco, but forget it if it's not heavy"! The Commission even comments on the negotiations as they go along. In truth, it is a magnificent demonstration of the art of speaking to say nothing which is the great contribution of the organs of the European Union to contemporary political history.
However, the European Parliament has set up “coordination groups” on the negotiation of the Greater Transatlantic Market. In these secret meetings of the European Parliament, the Commission systematically promises to make progress on the question of the transparency of the negotiations. “We have not found solutions to allow better access for the European Parliament to these negotiations. These are American practices.” But the negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero reassures us: they have thought of "the inclusion of civil society". Aaaaaah! The guys ! And for this, an advisory group, “Advisory group”, will have access, admittedly limited, “very soon”, to some of these documents! He could even discuss it with the Commission. Who are the representatives of this “civil society”? Pressure groups, starting with those in the industry sector. Lobbies in general, in any case those who are not already directly informed through their very special channels no doubt. For the unions, it will be more difficult. As for the representatives of the people, they can go count the daisies!
In this context, the European Commission's chief negotiator, Ignacio Garcia Bercero, has just presented the latest "advances" at the end of the last round of negotiations with the North Americans. In reality, only MPs who are members of the Parliamentary Committee on International Trade as well as the presidents of the various committees can attend this presentation. However, many of my colleagues, like me, are extremely interested in the subject. Need I remind you that I started distributing a brochure on the subject in 2009 for the European elections? And anyway, we have the right to know. But we don't know anything. The members of this committee don't know much either. You will see why.
These meetings of the coordination group take place behind closed doors, and without translation, in this approximate international English called globich.I actually questioned the Commission on this servitudeaccepted in the name of the "confidentiality" requirements of the United States government. Indeed the USA is spying on us! And, on top of that, they impose secrecy on us at the same time about what they are spying on. But the secret for whom? For us parliamentarians and for the peoples we represent. If not for whom?
Perhaps you say to yourself: “he is exaggerating to alert us”. No, I'm not exaggerating. There is a precedent before our eyes. At the end of October, the Commission and Canada reached a single market agreement. However, at this time no one has been able to access the final text of this agreement. And this cover-up continues, despite our persistent requests to the Commission. We only have snippets of information about some of the concessions that have been made by Europe to Canadians and vice versa. But the little we know is chilling. For example, we now know that all services that are not explicitly excluded in the text of the agreement can be liberalized. This is what they call a “negative list”. Terrible find! Obviously, the Americans are asking for the same “negative list” process to be implemented for the Greater Transatlantic Market.
But the end of the end of this agreement with Canadais to have validated an arbitration method "for the settlement of investor-State disputes" by a particular organization rather than before the justice of the country in question. These are the famous “arbitration tribunals”, which I have already discussed at length in this blog,particularly regarding the Chevron case. We know: private experts, constituted in the course of decision, condemn the States to pay heavy fines for having imposed social or environmental legislation on companies. I believe I have demonstrated it well: such a mechanism sounds the death knell of popular sovereignty, by ensuring the superiority of the rights of companies over those of citizens and over the defense of the general interest. On this point the machine got carried away. This is the crucial information.
European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has just launched a public consultation on this topic. He proposes to discuss the integration in the agreement of a mechanism for the settlement of disputes between States and transnational corporations. Problem: France has already given its opinion. His Parliament said “no”. Indeed, on May 29, 2013, the National Assembly explicitly requested in a resolution “that the use of a specific mechanism for the settlement of disputes between investors and States be excluded from the mandate to preserve the sovereign rights of States”. De Gucht doesn't care. For him, what France says does not count. He is right, because French Minister Nicole Bricq has already hailed, as if nothing had happened, "the Commission's initiative". The Hollande government is therefore complicit in a fraud consisting in overriding the vote of Parliament. Nothing less. Look for the newspaper that talks about it. The next trading round is scheduled for March. And, in May, we vote in the European elections!
No to the Europe-USA treaty!
Left of the Left Party, January 29, 2013
On January 29, 2014, the Left Party publishes a new leaflet against the Grand Marché Transatlantique and proposes a concrete solution: solidarity protectionism. You can consult this leaflet by following this link.
“No to GMO corn”
Press release of February 12, 2014
On Tuesday, the Council of Ministers for European Affairs failed to postpone the authorization to cultivate transgenic corn Pioneer TC 1507, due to the abstention of Merkel's Germany.
The final decision now rests with the European Commission.
But the European Commissioner for Health, Tonio Borg, is already saying that this transgenic maize, which resists insects by secreting an insecticide, is not dangerous.The insistence of the Commission to authorize the marketing GMO food market are only the prelude to the Grand Marché Transatlantique, which aims to flood the European market with this type of product.
However, on January 16, I voted like a majority of MEPsfor a resolution opposing the Commission's decisionwhich authorized the marketing of this maize. This is further proof of the authoritarian character of the European Union and of the treaties on which it is founded. They allow an unelected body to override popular sovereignty.
I deplore the end of the moratorium that protected Europe from this scourge and call for the banning of this new transgenic maize.
“A majority left-wing opposition against the Greater Transatlantic Market”
Press release of February 14, 2014
On the initiative of the elected Left and Alternative Parties, the Regional Council of Île-de-France has just voted a deliberation asking for the cessation of negotiations on the Free Trade Treaty between Europe and the United States. United.This deliberation declares to place the capital region out of this free trade agreement.
This vote was won thanks to the gathering of all the elected representatives of the Front de Gauche and Europe Ecologie – the Greens. It shows a majority left opposition against this dangerous project that the President of the Republic wanted to accelerate during his trip to the United States without having ever spoken about it before.
I regret that the Solferinian elected officials preferred not to take part in the vote on this deliberation after having tried to have it postponed. I note in particular that Benoit Hamon, Anne Hidalgo or Pierre Larrouturou did not take part in this vote, whereas this free trade agreement is a time bomb against employment in Europe and France.
This vote shows that an alternative left majority is possible to stop the liberal and productivist policies implemented by the government in France and in Europe.
“Francis the American”
Excerpt from blog post from February 14, 2014
François Hollande is a very long-time Atlanticist. His state visit to the United States is for him a personal apotheosis. Politically, it is equivalent to a certificate of good conduct issued by the Empire. Accompanied by a dubbing for good and loyal service by the American Democratic Party. By mouth what do you want with Obama, Hollande also engaged in sickening scenes of fraternization with some of the most questionable French and American bosses, tax evaders, relocators and leeches of tax exemption. All this appalled the simple people who witnessed it in front of their TV. But the most despicable of these inglorious days will remain his unconditional public rallying to the Grand Marché Transatlantique project. Is it normal that such an important subject, never mentioned by the Head of State in France or before the French, should be addressed in these conditions? Under a joint signature with the president of the opposing party in the negotiation? And in a way so disrespectful of the intelligence of his compatriots?
We have just given him the reply to the Île-de-France Regional Council.At the initiative of our group, the assembly adopteda motion declaring the Île-de-France region “a zone outside the Grand Marché Transatlantique”. And the assembly gave mandate to Jean-Paul Huchon, back from the official trip, to demand the cessation of negotiations. The PS, unable to come to an agreement, thanks to the resistance of its left, collapsed before the coalition of arguments that we formed with the Greens and the PCF group. Indeed, this time, the PCF of Île-de-France resisted the injunctions of the PS. A small encouraging sign in such a pitiful week of displaying subordination. We have just seen it with a return to the case of the Left Front logo in Paris and in the big cities. Alas, when we thought we were done with it, we went back to it. The PS imposed on the Parisian PCF to break the agreement, however at least, passed with its partners on this subject two days before. And he imposed on Pierre Laurent himself a meeting with Anne Hidalgo in the twentieth arrondissement where there is no danger for the left, which is in the majority there. But it is the district of the head of the list of the Left Front, Danielle Simonnet. Who pays order. Result: confusion is at its height. Our voters, rightly, are wondering what sauce will be prepared for the European elections and whether we will have to put up with new arrangements with the Socialists and their Europe. How to reassure them and train them, flanked by the running mate of Jean-Marc Ayrault, Anne Hidalgo and how many ministers and deputies who support the right-wing policy of the government in France and in Europe?
Here I give you a detailed review of the humiliating presidential performance and what it announces for the country.
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The New Democrat
François Hollande was the first Frenchman to translate the doctrine of Bill Clinton's "new democratic party" in the 1980s. He is the one who now implements it in France years after it sank into Europe in the wildest and most right-wing social-liberalism. This State visit was therefore an orgy of Atlanticism drunk bottoms up and in broad strokes.
Faced with the power of the United States, we can say that François Hollande showed the most extreme complacency. Of course, he couldn't have dreamed of bothering Obama about human rights at Guantanamo or on death row. Nor on the hunt for Assange or Snowden. Indeed human rights are a subject reserved for China, Cuba and so on. Likewise, I did not expect him to have the guts to raise with his friend the problem of his refusal to sign the bacteriological weapons conventions or the delays in the destruction of chemical weapons. Or to sign one of the international conventions that the United States refuses to sign, such as that on trade union freedoms, children's rights or anti-personnel mines. Let's forget the time when France respected its own commitments to the point of campaigning for them. Why would Hollande be more loyal to it in this area than in any other?
But still! There was something to say about the fundamental interests of our country in its relationship with the USA. The reverent press was careful not to ask him about what was said about the spying on the French by the NSA. The unbearable surveillance of citizens by the authorities is also a subject reserved for China and Cuba. Hollande was therefore able to get rid of the subject with a simple meaningless mention. A quick little tirade, poorly translated from English, recited from the catalog of replicas offered by US ambassadors in Europe. No surprise: it is the one repeated, word for word, by all European parrots with the exception of Mrs. Merkel who is used to being respected. Judge instead of the void: “There is a mutual trust that has been restored (and) which must be based both on respect for each of our countries and also on the protection of privacy (…) Following the Snowden's revelations, we have established a clarification between President Obama and myself about the past." The approximate French smells of its bad translation. The result is simple: the USA has not apologizedfor having spied on France, its embassies and several million French people. And they made no commitments for the future on this subject. Nor did Hollande ask them why he was pushed to the ridiculous point of the CIA to intercept Evo Morales’ plane to dislodge a Snowden who was not there. And he has never expressed any regrets for having done so. Anyway, he sat down without qualms at the same table as the head of the North American spies. General Keith Alexander was indeed present at the state dinner. He ate heartily. Calm. No regrets or apologies.
But the behavior of the president with our compatriots on the spot also poses a problem. He behaved as if ordinary French expatriates did not exist. Only the “business world” mattered. Until this ridiculous sentence of Madame Fleur Pèlerin according to which Hollande would have "come to give proof of love to the bosses"! In fact, the maximum consideration has been reserved for its most questionable elements. In San Francisco, Hollande gave a hug to Carlos Diaz, one of the leaders of the Pigeon movement of November 2012. His masquerade, organized on behalf of tax fugitives, cost billions to the state budget and taxpayers. A hug ! Like at the banquet of the elders in Tulle! At the state dinner, Pierre Gattaz was invited. We wonder why. If Thierry Lepaon had been part of the trip, would he have had dinner too? If so, why was he not invited? Him, or Berger or Mailly? The "social-democratic" president does not believe that trade unionists on both sides of the Atlantic should be honored and their meetings favored? So he only invites the bosses? Did Hollande need to highlight this preference in front of the French community in San Francisco? Why did you talk about "this advantage of having had the president of Medef throughout my trip. “A good joke like in Tulle to the wishes of the Chamber of Commerce? “You can applaud him. adds the bear trainer. "It will even be said that I made the president of Medef applaud" congratulates the jovial all backfiring. “I have no doubt that he will return the favor when the time comes, it is part of the pact of responsibility, I imagine”. How many most unacceptable things are said in the mode of a little joke! In the cottages, the TV broadcast images that shocked many. On the left, but also on the right, many found that it was really too much. Gattaz, he was not mistaken about the admission of weakness that all the behavior of the president expressed. He therefore allowed himself what no one ever does: open a domestic political controversy abroad from within the official trip with which he was associated. And he did it in a way that was especially hostile to our country. Because whining about the government “by coercion” is very directly bringing water to the mill of ordinary French bashing in the United States and in Anglo-Saxon circles.
And the Great Transatlantic Market? For me, this is the event! This is the most important announcement made by François Hollande. He never talked about it in France or to the French. And there, all of a sudden, just before leaving for the USA, he makes a spectacular appearance on the theme. He co-signed with Barack Obamaa forum in which he announced his support for the Grand Marché Transatlantique project. One searches in vain for the slightest allusion, however slight, to the slightest reservation, even in connection with the famous “cultural exception”. This column was published even before the start of the French President's visit to the United States of America. Like a political visa. Monday, February 10, in "Le Monde" and the "Washington post", the master and his faithful French napkin holder thus wrote that "the partnership for trade and investment that we seek to establish between the European Union European Union and the United States is a real opportunity to take advantage of the millions of jobs already represented, on both sides of the Atlantic, by trade between the EU and the United States. ". The reasoning is flawed: if these exchanges “already represent” millions of jobs, what will the agreement be used for? How could this agreement “leverage” a situation that already exists? But if we were wicked, that is to say totally lucid, we would say that, precisely, it is not a promise, as a quick reader might believe. It is an admission: it is indeed a question of taking advantage of the jobs that already exist by inflicting on them a better level of capitalist exploitation. Anyway, the most important thing is that François Hollande presents this agreement as a "real opportunity". It is a whole vision of the world that is expressed.
On this subject too, Hollande is now adding to his liberal orientation. The following day, Tuesday 11 February, during his joint press conference with Barack Obama in Washington, he therefore called for "moving quickly" in the negotiations between the European Union and the United States of America: "we have everything to gain by going fast. Otherwise, we know full well that there will be an accumulation of fears, threats, and tensions.”You read correctly, François Hollande wants to move quickly to avoid opposition to this Great Transatlantic Market. Because he knows reality as well as we do. The agreement will not be concluded before the European elections on May 25. As a result, the next European Parliament will have the power to reject the agreement reached. The European elections therefore become a referendum for or against this large market. With François Hollande, the PS chooses the "yes" alongside the right and the MEDEF. His hope is that no one finds out. We can therefore count on him and on the chorus of Europeanist media (a quasi pleonasm) to stifle the issue as much as possible. For our work, this is an opportunity. The reversal of the lid of the "yes-yes to the Europe that protects us" has already proven itself: it helps us to combine the energy of the "no" in the same rejection of the political system and its second media skin. The result is inevitable. "Liberation" had insulted the left of the "no" the day after the result. He then pursued us with his arrogance, with all his dogmatic smugness and with all his ability for visual and other manipulation. The newspaper's readership plummeted. But we got four million votes in the first round of a presidential election! Who's next ?
In Washington, François Hollande was really “the holly good fellow”, the “sacred good guy” of MEDEF. Indeed, the Grand Marché Transatlantique is an old demand from big European employers. It is still at the heart of the long “joint declaration” drawn up on February 5 by MEDEF and its German counterpart, the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI). This joint declaration covers so many subjects! We can say that it is a manifesto! He calls for more austerity and “competitiveness” in Europe. And the call for the formation of the Great Market with the United States of America is embedded in an ode to free trade. “Recommendation No. 8” (come on!) thus calls for “moving towards the opening of world markets for trade and investment” and “combatting trade protectionism”. Then, the big French and German employers call for "conducting negotiations for a transatlantic trade and investment agreement (TTIP) with a view to growth and job creation: a successful TTIP should provide for a complete and reciprocal opening of the markets ". Complete and reciprocal nothing less! Here's the principle.
As for the details, it's awful!Here they are: "apart from the elimination of tariff barriers, the agreement must make it possible to dismantle the existing trade barriers due to standards and different rules. » dismantling all the laws and regulations voted by the national parliaments, opening a victorious way forward to all the disputes that the firms will nurture against the states, that is the project! Everything is in order: “Public procurement must be open at all levels, which means, for example, the non-application, to European companies, of national preference clauses. Financial services must be included in the negotiation. This should allow better harmonization of multiple regulations. In addition, the agreement should also obtain the harmonization of customs clearance procedures”. And the French MEDEF and the German BDI insist that “this agreement would constitute significant progress for the development of global rules”. In fact, it is about achieving what the World Trade Organization (WTO) fails to do for global disruption and the domination of Anglo-Saxon standards. Barack Obama did not say anything else when he recalled that this "transatlantic trade and investment partnership would be the most important free trade agreement ever concluded since it would cover nearly 50% of the world's economic production, 30% of international trade and 20% of foreign direct investment”. This is the project that François Hollande went to approve at the American master! This is the heart of what we are going to fight at the ballot boxes of the European elections.
The PACA region outside GMT
Article by the elected representatives of the Front de Gauche PACA, February 24, 2014
After the Île-de-France Region, the PACA Region declared itself an “outside GMT zone” on February 22, 2014. They published a report of this event on February 24.
The regional councilors of the Front de Gauche group proposed a motion against the transatlantic pact during the plenary assembly last Friday.
The regional majority approved this text asking the government to suspend negotiations and placing our region outside the area of application of the transatlantic pact.
Below is the text of the motion submitted to the vote by our group:
For the halt of negotiations on theTransatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
On June 14, 2013, the European Commission obtained a mandate from all Member States to negotiate the Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) with the United States. This agreement seeks to establish a vast free trade market between the European Union and the United States, going beyond the WTO agreements.
This agreement would be a way for multinationals to eliminate all public decisions that constitute obstacles to the expansion of their market shares, enshrining the domination of European and American multinationals and the domination of the United States.
This project could introduce a private “investor-State” arbitration mechanism, which would replace the existing jurisdictions. Private investors could thus circumvent the laws and decisions that would hinder them, allowing, for example, oil companies to impose the exploitation of shale gas and other so-called unconventional hydrocarbons in France. Such a legal architecture would limit the already weak capacities of States to maintain public services (education, health, etc.), to protect social rights, to guarantee social protection, to maintain associative, social and cultural activities preserved from the market, to control the activity of multinationals in the extractive sector or to invest in sectors of general interest such as energy transition.
Beyond the exchange of goods, the Greater Transatlantic Market would complete the opening to competition of intangible exchanges. The draft agreement provides for the introduction of new measures relating to patents, copyrights, data protection, geographical indications and other forms of so-called "intellectual property", bringing back through the back door the defunct ACTA (Trade Agreement anti-counterfeiting), rejected in July 2012 by MEPs, following a broad mobilization of European citizens.
Quietly, powerful European and transatlantic lobbies are already working to work out with the European Commission, the sole authority in charge of negotiations on behalf of all the Member States, the terms of a possible agreement by 2015. Conversely, citizens, social movements and European parliamentarians do not have access to information on the negotiations in progress. The secrecy of the texts also limits the capacities of developing countries to intervene, whereas such an agreement would have legal and social repercussions for the whole world.
The Great Transatlantic Market would be a new and unprecedented attack on fundamental democratic principles. It would only worsen the commodification of the world, with the risk of major social, environmental and political regressions. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (AMI) in 1997, then the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in 2012, which carried the same dangers, were rejected in their time. Now it is time to stop the Great Transatlantic Market.
In addition, the process undertaken with the GMT goes against the petition launched by President Michel Vauzelle aimed at constitutionalizing our public services, guarantors of the equal treatment of our fellow citizens on the territory. national level, and which has met with great success well beyond the borders of our Region.
Because the PACA region and the policies it intends to carry out will be impacted by this agreement if it sees the light of day, we must act as we did when in June 2004 we refused the GATS by placing ourselves " non-AGCS zone" and by rallying the network of local authorities which was created on this occasion.
We have the capacity today to boost the dynamics in PACA and to defend popular sovereignty, as such the regional elected officials, meeting in plenary assembly, this Friday, February 21, decide:
– to open a regional debate on the risks of a race to the bottom of the social, economic, health, cultural and environmental rules that would represent the implementation of the free trade agreements approved by the European Union. This debate will be done in particular on the basis of hearings.
–as an elected assembly, to act by all possible means to prevent the implementation of the TTIP and to support all the local authorities of the Provence Region Alpes Côte d'Azur who would commit to this objective.
– to declare the Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur region a "non-TTIP zone".
And mandate the President of the Region to seize the government and the European institutions regarding:
– the halting of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) known as the Grand Marché Transatlantique due to the absence of democratic control and public debate on the ongoing negotiations.
– the immediate public release of all the texts relating to the TTIP negotiations which represent an unprecedented attack on democracy.
– l opening of a national debate on the GMT and more generally on all free trade agreements involving the full participation of local authorities, trade unions and associations, socio-professional organizations and populations.
The Île-de-France region says “no” to GMT!
Dossier by Pascale Le Néouannic and Bastien Lachaud published on the Left Party website on February 25, 2014
At the initiative of the Left Party and Alternatives group, the Ile-de-France Regional Council has just come out in favor of stopping negotiations on the Greater Transatlantic Market. Good news at a time when François Hollande is calling for discussions to be accelerated.
On July 8, 2013, the European Union and the United States began negotiations to conclude a free trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), nicknamed the Greater Transatlantic Market. Initiated in particular by the bosses of transnationals, the American administration as well as liberal and social liberal European leaders, this project would allow multinationals to take legal action against any State or local authority that does not comply with the standards of liberalism.
The mobilization of civic, trade union, environmental and political organizations is growing in Europe and the United States. It is starting to bear fruit. With the approach of the European elections, the European Commission had to announce the suspension of discussions on these arbitration tribunals. This is one of the most outrageous aspects of the text, as it allows companies to challenge national laws, on the grounds that they might affect their profits, before offshore arbitration tribunals composed of experts with exorbitant fees. European and American companies use these exceptional procedures to contest in the name of the sacrosanct “profit” the laws voted democratically. Australian tobacco laws are thus attacked by Philip Morris. The same goes for the Quebec moratorium on shale gas, or the questioning of the privatization of health in Slovakia.
Finally, with these exceptional courts, Chevron can sue Ecuador in order to obtain not to pay the $18 million to which it was sentenced by the Ecuadorian Court due to pollution caused by its drilling in the Amazon rainforest!
But barely announced by the commissioner, the suspension of negotiations on the arbitration tribunals was denied by Commission officials. However, the occult discussions continue. This agreement is negotiated in the greatest secrecy far from the citizens, the very mandate of the negotiators is secret. Secret for all citizens, but neither for the industry lobbies who are invited to the negotiating table nor for the United States authorities who have had access to it thanks to the spying of the NSA. This absurd and scandalous situation did not even lead the European leaders to stop the negotiations. On the contrary, it is for the European oligarchy to give ever more pledges to the multinationals to subject the peoples to the powers of money.
We understand better the meaning of François Hollande's visit to the United States. While the President never broached the question of this free trade agreement in France, he took advantage of this trip to assert about the GMT that "Going fast is not a problem, it's a solution . We have everything to gain by going fast. Otherwise, we know that there will be an accumulation of fears, threats, tensions. ". He reaffirms once again his Atlanticism and confirms the French submission to the United States initiated by Nicolas Sarkozy.
Complete obedience in all areas, and the GMT is no exception. So here comes the argument of the irrational fears of ignorant people who do not know what is good for them. Fortunately, experts are there to decide for him. We have already heard this refrain in 2005 during the referendum on the ECT, in 2009 for the Lisbon Treaty and more recently still during the ratification of the Merkozy Treaty in contradiction with all the promises that may have been made.
The "great transatlantic market" is sold as a promise of prosperity, creating thousands or even millions of jobs. These were the arguments put forward to praise the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico (NAFTA). Twenty years later, the situation is painful: a million jobs have been destroyed, the living and working conditions of the vast majority as well as the ecosystems have deteriorated, the repression against trade unions and the criminalization of social movements have increased, while inequalities have widened considerably to the benefit of the richest 1%! Do we want here the generalization of the exploitation and commodification of the commons?
This oligarchy will stop at nothing to impose its interests in defiance of popular sovereignty. European industrial lobbies such as BusinessEurope are on the move. Thus Pascal Kerneis of the European Service Forum, a lobby which defends the interests of Deutche Bank, IBM or Vodafone explains that it is a question for the industry of opposing any agreement in which profits are "negotiated against public policy objectives, including human and labor rights”! As Victor Hugo said, "The paradise of the rich is made of the hell of the poor"
We must act to stop the implementation of this agreement. Citizens and elected officials must mobilize to raise awareness of the dangers of the Greater Transatlantic Market. This is how we caused the failure of the negotiations aimed at establishing the GATS, the ancestor of the GMT. In our countries, the mobilizations of trade unions, associations and citizens have made it possible to avoid GMOs, meat with hormones, chickens cleaned with chlorine, cloned animals. If these negotiations were to be completed, these years of fighting for our rights and our public services would be swept away! To put an end to the GMT, the mobilization must have the same magnitude. The social movement is organized within a collective, in which we participate, initiated by ATTAC and the Copernic Foundation in particular.
It's time for elected officials to take responsibility. During the fight against GATS, a movement had been launched to declare local authorities an “outside GATS” zone. The Left Party has decided to do the same with the GMT. It is in this spirit that the Left Front – Left Party and Alternatives group of the Ile-de-France Regional Council has tabled a deliberation to this effect. The deliberation calls for the cessation of negotiations, the launch of a major national debate on free trade and proclaims the Ile-de-France Region outside the TTIP.
Courage, let's flee!
The adoption of the deliberation was marked by the desire of the PS group to avoid debate. After failing to send our text back to committee – which would simply have meant its burial – they refused to take part in the vote.
However, many PS Regional Councilors have already taken a public position in favor of stopping the GMT negotiations. Thus, Guillaume Balas, Emmanuel Maurel and Julien Dray in particular had tabled an amendment to this effect during the Europe Convention of their party last June. Why not adopt the same position in the regional hemicycle? What would these elected officials do if they sat in the European Parliament tomorrow?
“From Nantes to Florange, the time of disgust”
Excerpt from a blog post from February 25, 2014
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Madame Le Pen went to the agricultural fair.She denounced the Grand Marché Transatlantique. The usual media immediately relayed his precious words. The same did not devote a line to the motions that we tabled and had adopted by the regional councils of Île-de-France and PACA. The same, of course, did not push curiosity so far as to wonder what the FN voted. The same ones will then come to throw us finely: “you say like Mrs. Le Pen: you denounce the Large Transatlantic Market”. "Le Monde" should therefore soon be interested in a question whose existence it has burdened for ten years. You have to understand: in financial difficulty and out of readership, “Le Monde” is trying to regain market share on the right by devoting numerous advertorials to Madame Le Pen. Another beautiful page this Tuesday! For my part, I return to the question because we have just entered a new phase in our campaign against this new treaty.
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17 million French people outside GMT
We remember that Hollande the American co-signed a text with Obama in which he called for the prompt adoption of the new treaty establishing a single market with the United States of America. We remember that his haste is motivated by the fear of a "diffusion of fears" and "resistance" that his Republican majesty considers unacceptable. For us, it is obviously quite the opposite.We are campaigning to increase the rejection of this terrible project. And that since the first day.And throughout the long, very discreet and smoky sequence of this process. In 2009, alone in the entire European countryside, the Left Party published a summary information brochure. More than six hundred journalists received a copy, as did 100,000 French people. We have not managed to break through the almost total wall of media indifference. We therefore undertook to open the breach starting from another point in the table.This is what was undertaken in the Île-de-France region. And after the Île-de-France region last week, the PACA Regional Council in turn has just adopted a motion demanding that negotiations on the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT) be stopped. Thus, the two largest French regions, i.e. 17 million inhabitants in total, have now declared themselves a non-GMT zone. The campaign launched by the elected representatives of the Parti de Gauche passed from one assembly to another. It gives rise to interesting convergences and no less revealing oppositions. Convergences? On the proposal of the PG-Alternatives group in Île-de-France and the FDG group in PACA, each time we found side by side the parties of the Left Front, the EELV groups and, in the south, many socialists to vote together . Remember that this is a vote against a project yet defended by the Head of State. Conversely, by voting against this motion in PACA, the FN showed its duplicity: for popular sovereignty and against liberalism on the plateaus, at voting time, it is Atlanticist and defender of the "globalized system"!
The objective to be pursued is obviously to constantly increase the number of local assemblies that declare themselves “outside GMT”. It is thus necessary to build a democratic legitimacy which isolates the President of the Republic and calls into question his right to refuse the referral of the people: when the elected representatives of the Republic are called upon to express themselves on this anti-democratic negotiation, they vote against.
These votes in local assemblies are proof that citizen mobilization can break through the wall of silencemedia and politics on the issue by circumventing it. This kind of initiative is therefore a very fundamental vehicle for raising awareness. Of course, these votes are no substitute for molecular action in the field. We apply ourselves to it. By himself, our comrade RaoulMarc Jennar will have held more than thirty-seven information meetings on the subject throughout the country. This methodical work will find an exceptional opportunity to develop with the European elections. See the device that is being put in place. The Left Front is hostile to the project, the NPA and the other Trotskyist groups too. EELV has changed course on this subject: it too has courageously taken a stand against the project. Everywhere, its elected officials vote with ours to establish zones outside the large market. We can think that EELV will make it a focus of its own European electoral campaign. Just like us. We are therefore going to take the Solferinians in a pincer movement with the help of all of them. Thus will be born a new “no” from the left to the new treaty. At the exit of the polls, the total of leftist opponents will be several times higher than that of socialist votes in favor of the single Europe-USA market. President Hollande will undoubtedly lose the little legitimacy he has left, and this with the help of part of his parliamentary and governmental majority. The front that we managed to bring out against Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport and the Prime Minister, we can build on this crucial subject facing the President of the Republic. The instruction is therefore launched: the European election must be made a referendum against the project. It is also necessary to do everything to act jointly with EELV on the subject, without being cautious or beforehand with a device. Unite on content, there is no better mass preparation for building a new left majority.
“Agreement with the United States: the Le Pen tartufferie is laughable! »
Press release of February 25, 2014
Five years after I sounded the alarm, Marine Le Pen is waking up! On the eve of the European elections, it suddenly claims to be waging "war" on the Greater Transatlantic Market between the European Union and the United States of America.
This electoral awakening should not mislead too much. Indeed, in this "war", Madame Le Pen's friends have already capitulated. In the PACA region, last Friday, the FN group voted against the Left Front motion condemning this generalized free trade project. The motion was adopted with the support of the Greens and some socialists, including President Michel Vauzelle. The National Front voted for the project with the right and other socialists. For his part, Jean-Marie Le Pen preferred to miss the meeting of the Regional Council so as not to have to take a position. But the battle against the new transatlantic single market is well underway. With the vote of the Île-de-France and PACA regional councils, seventeen million French people have been placed "outside the Grand Marché Transatlantique".
With the Greens and many socialists, the Left Front is creating a new left-wing majority against free trade and the productivism that underpins it.
The Great Transatlantic Market: There if I am there
Raoul Marc-Jennar, guest of France Inter on 1st March 2014
Raoul Marc-Jennar, member of the Left Party and Attac, is a Belgian essayist and holds a doctorate in political science. He organizes training conferences on the Grand Marché transatlantique throughout France. On March 1st 2014, he was invited on France Inter to talk about this subject. To watch the show, follow this link.
"Europe: the PS botches its copy"
Excerpt from the blog post “The Strategy of Permanent Outrage”, March 5, 2014
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As for the large transatlantic market with the United States, the PES supports it.It only asks for the "guarantee of human rights and social rights of citizens, decent work, respect for environmental standards, culture as well as corporate social responsibility and fair trade” without distinguishing the GMT from “all trade agreements”.The French PS, on the other hand, takes voters for simpletons. On his campaign website, he writes that there is “no reason to rush”. However, less than a month ago, in the United States, François Hollande called for “going fast”. But the PS quickly recovers to denounce the "protectionist withdrawal" in unison with François Hollande.
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“Valls and the large USA-Europe market”
Excerpt from the blog post "The state of gaping power", April 5, 2014
Who will be the Minister of Foreign Trade? This domain of authority battle between Arnaud Montebourg and Laurent Fabius lasted all day Thursday. Manuel Valls finally chose. It is Laurent Fabius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who will also take care of Foreign Trade, and not the Minister of the Economy. Would the message be: French diplomats officially become sales representatives for the benefit of French multinationals? It's more serious. Trade is an element of the country's geopolitical strategy. This is a confirmation.But in the context, it must aggravate our fears about the project ofGreat Transatlantic Marketbetween the European Union and the United States. United of America. For more than five years, I have denounced this project for a transatlantic free trade agreement as the desire to build a “NATO of the economy”. That is to say, to make the European Union and France ever more subservient to the economic interests of the United States of America, just as our military interests are subservient to them through NATO. The attachment of Foreign Trade to Foreign Affairs is not neutral in this context. It shows the political objective of such a free trade agreement beyond its strictly economic content.
This admission makes the opacity surrounding this Grand Marché Transatlantique project even more unbearable. We remember that on February 11, in the United States,François Hollande had expressed his desire to "go fast" on this project to avoid "an accumulation of fears, threats, tensions" . Michel Sapin confirmed that the government is afraid of the people. Thursday, April 3, the new Minister of Finance was questioned by a listener in the morning of France Inter about the Grand Marché Transatlantique. More precisely, the listener asked if a project of such magnitude did not deserve a referendum.This is a demand that the Left Party expressed as early as May 2013, even before the opening of negotiations between the European Commission and the United States of America.Michel Sapin's response was staggering in his contempt for the people. After recalling that "it is one of the foundations of Europe to be a large market", Michel Sapin affirmed, without argument that "the referendum is not the right democratic answer to a question like this ». For what ? You won't know. Or rather, we understand it following Michel Sapin's answer. For Michel Sapin, “This does not mean that there should not be a debate. There must be debate on all the difficult subjects, because the French must be able to understand what is happening. Too often, and for too long, they no longer understand the issues, so they no longer understand the answers that are provided”. Michel Sapin does not want a referendum on the Grand Marché Transatlantique because he considers that the people are too stupid to understand?
Meanwhile, this project continues to move forward in the living rooms of the oligarchy. Thus will be held, next Thursday, April 10, in Paris, a meeting between leaders of the European Union and representatives of European and American employers. This meeting is organized by the newspapers Washington Post and The European Voice. It has the full support of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union. There will be lots of people! The day will be introduced by the European Commissioner in charge of negotiations with the United States, Karel de Gucht, in person. It will be concluded by the Swedish Minister of Trade. In between, participants will explore how to “harmonize regulations” to “boost competitiveness and create a level playing field for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, reducing compliance costs and burdens administrative", according to the words of the program of the day. This is what will be discussed by Wolfgang Bernhard, member of the management of the German car manufacturer Daimler and Nani Beccalli-Falco, CEO of the European subsidiary of the American company General Electric.
Everything is on the menu of the day: health, biotechnology or digital. On this subject, it is the CEO of Google for Eastern and Southern Europe , Africa and the Middle East who will speak. Passing through Paris, he will probably not talk about the tax evasion of which Google has been guilty in France for a sum estimated at around one billion euros. Perhaps he will raise the subject at the bend of a corridor with the Secretary-General of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose presence is also announced? Unless he talks about the financial arrangements for tax evasion with another speaker of the day like Simon Cooper? He is the Executive Director of HSBC Global Commercial Banking, a subsidiary of the HSBC group cited in several cases of tax evasion in Switzerland, in particular for the benefit of nearly 3,000 French people.
The highlight of the show could well take place around 4:15 p.m. This is the time at which the round table on "Energy and raw materials in the transatlantic market" is scheduled. The ambition is affirmed in the program for the day: “In this session, we will analyze the impacts of the TTIP (the official name of the GMT) on energy and raw materials. More specifically, we will see if an agreement could facilitate exports of liquefied natural gas to the European Union, and if the EU would thus benefit from the shale gas revolution in the United States”. To discuss this, both speakers are very high level. We find Heinz Haller, executive vice-president of The DowChemical Company, a multinational petrochemical company. And Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total!
To attend this gathering of big bosses, you have to pay 1,788 euros per person. Those who registered before March 14 were entitled to a discount of 200 euros. Not even enough to pay for a night in the hotel where the day will be held. The price of one night in a basic room at the Shangri La hotel is 800 euros! And the largest suite can be rented for 25,000 euros per night. Or 22 times the minimum wage for one night in a hotel! A rally is planned in front of this haunt of oligarchs on Thursday April 10 at 4 p.m. He is summoned by the unitary national collective against the Grand Marché Transatlantique. It will be an opportunity to denounce the dangers of such an agreement. And the denial of democracy represented by the opacity of the negotiation and the refusal of a referendum expressed by Michel Sapin. In any case, one thing is clear: the battle against the GMT must accelerate with the Valls government!
The GMT against education
Question to the Commission published on the Europe blog on 21 March 2014
Despite the Commission's efforts to keep people out of negotiations on the single transatlantic market, more and more of them are calling for a public debate.
It is the turn of the European Students Union (ESU) to worry about the effects of the Grand Marché Transatlantique. Education seen as “an ordinary economic service” is not yet the dominant vision in Europe, but it could be imposed. Indeed, the exemptions proposed for educational services are very limited and do not concern private establishments. Thus, because of this agreement, the education sector will be exposed to increased pressures of commodification and privatization.
Does the Commission intend for once to defend the general interest rather than a few private interests?
We also learn that American “for-profit education” companies established on European soil could sue governments that refuse to recognize their diplomas or oppose the increase in tuition fees .
Shouldn't the Commission completely exclude education from this agreement?
Great Transatlantic Market the hypocrisy of the SPD, the new admission of the Commission
Note on the Europe blog of March 25, 2014
The news went unnoticed in the French press. Only the Financial Times echoed it. On Wednesday, March 12, the State Secretary for the Economy of the German government, Brigitte Zypries, of the Social Democratic Party,spoke out against the use of arbitration courts in the Greater Transatlantic Market.
The Secretary of State declared that "the German federal government rejects the formation of a special law for firms within the framework of the Greater Transatlantic Market", thus attacking the project to create a private arbitration mechanism in favor of multinationals. Also according to the Financial Times, she clarified that US firms “enjoy sufficient protection from German national courts” and that recourse to private courts is therefore not justified.
One might think that this setback is a first victory for citizen mobilization in Germany against this project. This is partly true.But above all it is further proof of the hypocrisy of European social-liberals.Indeed, as a good social-liberal, the Secretary of State is making circles in water without consequences.
Indeed, the chief negotiator of the European Commission, Mr. Ignacio Garcia Bercero, immediately recalled the reality. The discussion with the United States on recourse to arbitration is provided for in the negotiating mandate! In fact, the chief negotiator explained: “we are working on the basis of the mandate that has been given to us”. Angela Merkel approved this mandate in June 2013, like all the other heads of state and government of the European Union.
This statement by the European negotiator sounds like a new admission. Because, through it, the Commission finally recognizes that the negotiating mandate does indeed provide for the establishment of a private arbitration tribunal to deal with the interests of multinationals.This mandate is still secret and hidden from people and parliamentarians. But this episode is a new knife attack against opacity.
Countering the GMT: why and how?
Afternoon of discussions in Parliament, published on the Europe blog on 27 March 2014
On the eve of Obama's visit to Brussels, I organized an afternoon of discussions at the European Parliament on the Grand Marché Transatlantique.
You can find the videos of the speeches here:
Introduction by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, GUE/NGL MEP
Introduction by Paul Murphy, GUE/NGL MEP
1st round table: the challenges
Environmental and health issues, Natacha Cingotti, Friends of the Earth (Europe)
The case of chickens washed with bleach, Geneviève Savigny, Confédération paysanne
The GMT to avoid responding to the Crisis, Bruno Poncelet, FGTB
2nd Round Table: mobilization and political perspectives
State of mobilization, Pia Eberhardt, Corporate Europe Observatory
An issue at the heart of the European elections, Paul Murphy
Conclusion by Jean-Luc Mélenchon
France must grant asylum to Edward Snowden - Letter to François Hollande
Published on the Europe blog on March 28, 2014
Mr. President of the Republic,
I wish to draw your attention to the situation of Mr. Edward Snowden.
Last June, this courageous man revealed in detail certain mass control programs allowing the United States to monitor the conversations of millions of European citizens and institutions. It thus brought to light a vast system of espionage of the European Union and its Member States. France was not spared. By proving this process, Edward Snowden knew that he was running a great risk in the face of a country known for the violence of its processes, as evidenced by its so-called secret prisons and its Guantanamo torture center. But could he imagine the ingratitude of those he so helpfully helped to protect?
I immediately asked that France offer political asylum to this benefactor of Europe who helped unmask this plot. You have chosen to refuse this asylum. You even, on an order from an office in the United States, prohibited the airspace of France to the presidential plane of Evo Morales, believing that Snowden would have hidden there.
The European Commission, for its part, chose this moment to begin the round of negotiations on the large Transatlantic Market. While it was established that the United States had spied on the European negotiating mandate, yet kept secret from the parliamentarians themselves!
Has anyone ever seen such a useful citizen treated worse? Out of respect for our national dignity, I avoid here mentioning very dubious figures who, on the contrary, have been honored with the highest distinctions in our national orders. Since my country is so indifferent to its benefactor Edward Snowden, I have decided to act with my GUE/NGL group. I nominated Snowden for the Sakarov Prize of the European Parliament, allowing him to be selected as one of the three finalists.
For its part, the Civil Liberty, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament was finally seized to establish the proof of the “mass surveillance” of European citizens. In this context, summoned at the same time that he was banned from staying, Mr Snowden answered, in writingthe questions of the deputies in charge of this investigation. His responses underscore the futility of such surveillance programs when it comes to terrorism: “No Western government has been able to establish hard evidence that such programs are necessary.” But also that this espionage also concerns the economic sector.
Snowden concludes by asking for asylum in Europe again but "members of the governments have told me that the United States, and I quote, "will not allow" the European partners to grant me political asylum. . I would accept any offer for safe transit or permanent asylum, but I recognize that it would require an act of extraordinary political courage.”
Mr. President I have the honor to request this political asylum for Mr. Snowden. I believe that you can disobey the injunctions of the United States as many of your predecessors in your mandate have made on far more conflicting subjects. France would be honored to put an end to the unworthy ostracism which Mr. Snowden is struck by the very people to whom he has rendered such eminent service.
In the meantime, please believe, Mr. President, that I have very strong Republican feelings.
EU-US Summit: No to American Europe
Note on the Europe blog of March 28, 2014
Obama is visiting Brussels. The main roads are closed, the smallest streets blocked, the peasants evacuated.
Like a god descending from heaven to evangelize the mortals Barroso and Van Rompuy, apostles of neoliberalism. And as a god is very busy, he only granted sixty-five minutes of discussions to his apostles and two questions to the press who came in large numbers. Only the signed text counts. Appalling.
The text of the final declaration is nevertheless rich in lessons
A large forced march
The statement calls with alacrity and a “sense of urgency” to quickly sign the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT). It is a question of accelerating the negotiations to counter the mobilization against this treaty being organized across Europe. “I advise everyone to wait and see what will actually be negotiated before to engage in any kind of speculation,” Obama said. After four rounds of secret negotiation, the people are effectively left to speculation. The leaders, however, recall their desire to "conduct these negotiations with clarity and in such a way as to build the support of our audiences". So why don't they make the negotiation mandate public instead?
Ukraine: behind the USA
The final statement strongly urges Russia “to engage in a constructive dialogue with Ukraine with a view to finding a political solution” but at the same time “strongly condemns the latter's illegal annexation of Crimea ". It is therefore difficult to see on what basis the dialogue could begin.
Obama even declares, on behalf of the USA and the EU “We are united in our support for Ukraine, our commitment to isolate Russia”. Isolate Russia? To do what ? EU diplomacy not content to align itself with US positions now speaks through the voice of its president. Absurd!
Data protection: let's cooperate with spies
Finally, as is becoming usual, the joint declaration calls for enhanced EU-NATO cooperation for "the maintenance of peace and security". It even welcomes the EU-USA working group on cybersecurity and cybercrime, while the first cyber espionage threat to Europe comes precisely from the USA, as shown by the revelation of the mass espionage program by the NSA. It is true that it includes well-known Islamist terrorists like Angela Merkel or the Alcatel company.
The only good news from this summit may be the legitimate concern that GMT negotiators are feeling in view of the protests that are rising in Europe. Their eagerness to close this deal is telling. The rejection of ACTA in 2010 remains in their minds and in ours as well.
The GMT encounters more and more opposition
Note on the Europe blog of March 31, 2014
Inthe United States, the tide seems to be turning for the Greater Transatlantic Market. The US Congress has yet to grant Mr. Obama the official mandate to negotiate.
In the camp of elected Democrats, a majority now say that they reject a “fast track authority” procedure that would allow President Obama to negotiate the GMT more quickly.
Even the English social-liberal deputies are rebelling against the Grand Marché Transatlantique project. On March 26, on the initiative of Caroline Lucas, 34 English deputies tabled a motion calling for the exclusion GMT arbitration mechanisms. They point to the fact that “foreign investors could be allowed to file a complaint against a national government when they perceive a violation of their rights and this complaint would go directly to international arbitration tribunals and completely bypass national courts and the judicial system” . They believe that the arbitration mechanism should be excluded from the GMT.
Since 2012, a Dutch mining company has been suing the Indonesian government in an arbitration court. The mining company that won the arbitration; it is now claiming one billion from Indonesia, excluding interest. As a result,the Indonesian government has decided to terminate its bilateral treaties with the Netherlands as of next year, and its sixty-seven other bilateral treaties in the very near future. Congratulations to the friends of free trade!
Like the Indonesians, we must refuse to submit to the diktats of multinationals through free trade agreements setting up private arbitration courts.
Obama's gas blackmail
Question to the Commission published on the Europe blog on 1stApril 2014
The European Union is going through a difficult situation and, with the Ukrainian crisis, it is raising the question of energy dependence on Russia, on which 30% of our natural gas consumption depends.
But Obama has the solution! He gave it on Wednesday March 26: “The United States is fortunate to have been able to develop additional energy sources and we have authorized the export of as much natural gas as Europe may need. , but it will be done via the global market in which this energy is sold”. In short, Obama will give us all the gas we need to do without Russian supplies. But at a high price, of course.
What is the benefit for Europeans of sourcing gas from the United States rather than Russian gas?
Furthermore, according to Obama, the Greater Transatlantic Market will facilitate gas exports. Indeed, this would allow US companies to automatically obtain operating licenses from the US Department of Energy and thus flood the European market with shale gas. The only thing that President Barroso replied to this blackmail is that “we are supporters of free trade”.
Does the Commission really intend to continue negotiating the transatlantic agreement in this context of energy blackmail?
Because the US president intends to encourage the exploitation of shale gas in Europe. On this subject, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, underlined that the fact of being able to have access to American shale gas would be “a blessing“.
Does the Commission intend to listen to the peoples of Europe who, on the contrary, oppose the exploitation of these gases in Europe as elsewhere?
Finally, Obama comments on European energy policy in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, which "shows the need for Europe to seek ways to diversify its energy sources even further".
Will the Commission let the United States of America dictate its energy policy?
Valls and the large USA-Europe market
Excerpt from the blog post “the gaping state of power”, April 5, 2014
Who will be the Minister of Foreign Trade? This domain of authority battle between Arnaud Montebourg and Laurent Fabius lasted all day Thursday. Manuel Valls finally chose. It is Laurent Fabius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who will also take care of Foreign Trade, and not the Minister of the Economy. Would the message be: French diplomats officially become sales representatives for the benefit of French multinationals? It's more serious. Trade is an element of the country's geopolitical strategy. It's a confirmation. But in context, this must aggravate our fears about the Greater Transatlantic Market project between the European Union and the United States of America. For more than five years, I have denounced this project for a transatlantic free trade agreement as the desire to build a “NATO of the economy”. That is to say, to make the European Union and France ever more subservient to the economic interests of the United States of America, just as our military interests are subservient to them through NATO. The attachment of Foreign Trade to Foreign Affairs is not neutral in this context. It shows the political objective of such a free trade agreement beyond its strictly economic content.
This admission makes the opacity that surrounds this plan for a Greater Transatlantic Market even more unbearable. We remember that on February 11, in the United States, François Hollande expressed his desire to "go quickly" on this project to avoid "an accumulation of fears, threats, tensions". Michel Sapin confirmed that the government is afraid of the people. Thursday, April 3, the new Minister of Finance was questioned by a listener in the morning of France Inter about the Grand Marché Transatlantique. More specifically, the listener asked if a project of such magnitude did not deserve a referendum. This is a requirement that the Left Party expressed in May 2013, even before the opening of negotiations between the European Commission and the United States of America. Michel Sapin's response was staggering with contempt for the people. After recalling that "it is one of the foundations of Europe to be a large market", Michel Sapin affirmed, without argument that "the referendum is not the right democratic answer to a question like this ". For what ? You won't know. Or rather, we understand it following Michel Sapin's answer. For Michel Sapin, “This does not mean that there should not be a debate. There must be debate on all the difficult subjects, because the French must be able to understand what is happening. Too often, and for too long, they no longer understand the issues, so they no longer understand the answers that are provided”. Michel Sapin does not want a referendum on the Grand Marché Transatlantique because he considers that the people are too stupid to understand?
Meanwhile, this project continues to advance in the salons of the oligarchy. Thus will be held, next Thursday, April 10, in Paris, a meeting between leaders of the European Union and European and American employers' representatives. This meeting is organized by the newspapers Washington Post and The European Voice. It has the full support of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union. There will be lots of people! The day will be introduced by the European Commissioner in charge of negotiations with the United States, Karel de Gucht, in person. It will be concluded by the Swedish Minister of Trade. In between, participants will explore how to “harmonize regulations” to “boost competitiveness and create a level playing field for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, reducing compliance costs and burdens administrative", according to the words of the program of the day. This will be discussed by Wolfgang Bernhard, member of the management of the German car manufacturer Daimler and Nani Beccalli-Falco, CEO of the European subsidiary of the American company General Electric.
Everything is on the menu of the day: health, biotechnology or digital. On this subject, it is the CEO of Google for Eastern and Southern Europe , Africa and the Middle East who will speak. Passing through Paris, he will probably not talk about the tax evasion of which Google has been guilty in France for a sum estimated at around one billion euros. Perhaps he will raise the subject at the bend of a corridor with the Secretary-General of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose presence is also announced? Unless he talks about the financial arrangements for tax evasion with another speaker of the day like Simon Cooper? He is the Executive Director of HSBC Global Commercial Banking, a subsidiary of the HSBC group cited in several cases of tax evasion in Switzerland, in particular for the benefit of nearly 3,000 French people.
The highlight of the show could well take place around 4:15 p.m. This is the time at which the round table on "Energy and raw materials in the transatlantic market" is scheduled. The ambition is affirmed in the program for the day: “In this session, we will analyze the impacts of the TTIP (the official name of the GMT) on energy and raw materials. More specifically, we will see if an agreement could facilitate exports of liquefied natural gas to the European Union, and if the EU would thus benefit from the shale gas revolution in the United States”. To discuss this, both speakers are very high level. We find Heinz Haller, executive vice-president of The Dow Chemical Company, a multinational petrochemical company. And Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total!
To attend this gathering of big bosses, you have to pay 1,788 euros per person. Those who registered before March 14 were entitled to a discount of 200 euros. Not even enough to pay for a night in the hotel where the day will be held. The price of one night in a basic room at the Shangri La hotel is 800 euros! And the largest suite can be rented for 25,000 euros per night. Or 22 times the minimum wage for one night in a hotel! A rally is planned in front of this haunt of oligarchs on Thursday April 10 at 4 p.m. He is summoned by the unitary national collective against the Grand Marché Transatlantique. It will be an opportunity to denounce the dangers of such an agreement. And the denial of democracy represented by the opacity of the negotiation and the refusal of a referendum expressed by Michel Sapin. In any case, one thing is clear: the battle against the GMT must accelerate with the Valls government!
Let's stop European Commissioner Karel de Gucht (and at the same time the Grand Marché Transatlantique)!
Note on the Europe blog of April 9, 2014
As opposition to the Greater Transatlantic Market grows, European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht does not seem to have taken the measure of the situation. He gets stuck in a dilatory communication.
Thus when he declares on Thursday, April 3 "not to speak with lobbyists". While precisely, on April 10, in the Parisian palace Shangri La, he will provide the latest state of the TTIP negotiations to an audience of big bosses and financiers. This is indeed the meeting organized by the American Chamber of Commerce for the European Union (AMCHAM EU), one of the largest US lobbies.
When it’s not Karel de Gucht who slips up, it’s his chief of staff, Rupert Schlegelmilch. To reassure skeptics of arbitration, he explains that they will ensure "that an environmental or health law that is not discriminatory and that is in the public interest cannot be judged as an expropriation by arbitration tribunals "unless it is excessive". What Schlegelmilch means by “excessive” are those laws which, by strengthening public services, “excessively” protect the environment or the health of European citizens.
To stop the GMT, let's stop the European commissioners who negotiate behind the backs of the people!
Investor-State arbitration or the end of democracy!
Blog post from May 6, 2014
As part of the free trade agreement between Canada and Romania, Gabriel Resources,a mining company registered in Canada, announces that it will take Romania to court . Romania's fault? Romanian parliamentarians do not want to grant an operating license to the mining company on the Rosa Montana site because it plans to use massive amounts of cyanide to operate the mine.
We remember the Baia Mare disaster in 2000,when the dam of a gold mining operation containing cyanide-contaminated water broke. Spilled cyanide (estimated at 100,000 tons) and heavy metals polluted the Tisza and the Danube, instantly killing large quantities of fish in Hungary and the former Yugoslavia (80% of the Tisza's fish resources on the Serbian side ), and have contaminated the drinking water of 2.5 million Hungarians.
Seeing another ecological disaster coming, Romanian MPs refused the operating license to Gabriel Resourcesby voting against, in December 2013.
But the vote of the elected members of the Romanian Parliament cannot frighten the financiers of Gabriel Resources (including the American billionaire John Paulson, who won 3.7 billion by betting on the subprime crisis).Believing that his investment is cheated by Romania, the Executive Director of the company Gabriel Resources therefore announced on April 17, 2014 that he was attacking Romania before a private arbitration court, claiming from it the modest sum of 4 billion Euros.
Let's refuse the negotiation of the Grand Transatlantic Market which includes the generalization of the arbitration system and the end of popular sovereignty for the benefit of multinationals!
Secret Grand Marché Transatlantic Negotiations Continue
Blog post from May 31, 2014
Last week, from May 19 to 23, 2014, on the eve of the European elections, the fifth round of negotiations on the Grand Marché Transatlantique was held in Virginia, in the United States of America. No media coverage.
During these negotiations, however, many topics were addressed: the consistency of rules, intellectual property rights, labor and the environment, services and investment, "technical barriers" to trade, agricultural market access and rules of origin.
As usual, the most total opacity was required. North American Dan Mullaney claims that the negotiators met with “a large number of representatives from the academic community, consumer groups, trade unions, environmental groups, farmers and ranchers”. Among the representatives consulted, we note the presence of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union, which we have no doubt will have at heart to defend the interests of the peoples of Europe.
Shouldn't we demand a complete list of the organizations that had the opportunity to meet the negotiators and learn about the latest progress in the negotiations?
The popular contestation of the Grand Marché Transatlantique is beginning to take shape and produce its effects. Negotiators are worried. They therefore propose ridiculous operations of transparency to curb the dispute.
Thus, the European Commission is offering European civil society organizations a “dialogue” on June 3, 2014. More than 160 organizations have registered, seeking information on whether their industry will be affected by massive deregulation and export North American products which will be equally so.
But there will be no “dialogue”, since the Commission plans to receive these organizations all together and only for two hours. In short: always talk, you interest me…
Finally, while the issue of including arbitration tribunals in the agreement was supposedly pending, the Commission published a list of negotiators which prominently features a special negotiator for these arbitration tribunals. investor-state arbitrations.
The smoking continues. TAFTA is moving forward. Hollande is an absent subscriber…
Shale gas and energy liberalization on the menu of the Grand Marché Transatlantique
Blog post from July 9, 2014
European negotiators for the Greater Transatlantic Marketplan to facilitate the exploitation of shale gas.
It is thanks to a leaked restricted document that we learn that the TTIP will include a particularly worrying chapter on energy.
This document is dated September 20, 2013. It comes from the European Commission's foreign trade services. This document served as the basis for the 2nd round of negotiations.
In article A it is intended to "enhance free trade in raw materials and energy". According to article C, it is learned that “the export of energy goods from the other party will be grantedautomatically”. Article H provides for “access to and license to carry out prospecting and exploration activities for hydrocarbon production”. This article therefore foresees the futureexploitation of shale gas.Another chapter intends to facilitate the exploitation ofoffshore oil.
Icing on the cake, Article N provides for the establishment of a "regulatory authority".This "regulatory authority" will be "appointed and employed to regulate the energy in the respective territories". The catch is that this authority “will have to be legally distinct and functionallyindependent from any other public authority”.
In short, this is theend of popular energy sovereignty:The very end of a right of scrutiny bythe representatives of the people,and therefore the< b>e reign of the energy multinationals.
GMT: the Commission shuts down the debate
Press release of September 15, 2014
The soon-to-be-renewed European Commission intends to pursue its authoritarian logic to the end. Today, it even refuses to register a citizens' initiative project against the Grand Marché Transatlantique under the bureaucratic pretext that it would not fall within the remit of the Commission.
This citizens' initiative project proposed to the Commission to put an end to the negotiation mandate of the Grand Marché Transatlantique. The Commission prevents it even before starting to collect the millions of signatures needed to be examined. By refusing to register this initiative, it is therefore the whole public debate that the Commission is seeking to muzzle.
Without naivety in relation to this procedure, the opinions of which the Commission is not required to follow, I hereby denounce the brutality of the maneuver and continue to oppose this Greater Transatlantic Market.
GMT, the farce of transparency
Blog post from October 14, 2014
On October 9, the Council declared that it had reached a "common agreement" to make the negotiation documents available within the framework of the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT). This is the negotiation mandate for the EU, of the European Commission with Washington. This mandate, whose publication was refused by the Commission during the 7 previous rounds of negotiations, was however leaked in June 2013. It has since been available on numerous websites. The Council is ridiculous.
For him, it is obviously not a question of really making such a document public, to allow debate or citizen involvement. But just to authorize the consultation under conditions in a "reading room" provided for this purpose. In this room, photography, scanning and copying of documents are prohibited, as is the use of computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices which must be placed in a specific area. And, of course, the unjustified disclosure of the documents and the information they contain is strictly prohibited. Grotesque.
However, both the Commission and the Council claim that the GMT trade negotiations are the most transparent ever. The executive would even provide more information to MEPs than provided for in the Lisbon Treaty: with the establishment of a website and a dedicated Twitter account. All this is just a farce intended to silence the protest against the Grand Marché Transatlantique. Missed.
Does the Commission hear the people of Europe?
Question to the European Commission of January 15, 2015
This Tuesday, January 13, the European Commission made public the consultation on investment arbitration, launched in the spring of 2014. The result is clear: 145,000 responses against out of a total of 150,000... Even Cécilia Malmström, the Trade Commissioner acknowledged: "This clearly shows that there is considerable skepticism about this mechanism".
Does the Commission therefore intend to take account of its own consultation?
Does the Commission plan to withdraw the principle of arbitration tribunals (ISDS for Investment State Dispute Settlement) from the transatlantic treaty currently being negotiated, since this point concentrates opposition and skepticism on this draft treaty?
Can the Commission indicate whether it sets itself a limit of what is unacceptable in the negotiations?
GMT is bad for Europe and human civilization
February 24, 2015
Find out my intervention in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on the subject of the Greater Transatlantic Market.
GMT: negotiations continue despite citizen opposition
Blog post from February 26, 2015
At the beginning of February, behind closed doors in Brussels, the European Union began its 8th round of negotiations on the Greater Transatlantic Market (GMT) with the United States. It focuses on regulatory cooperation, particularly in sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) matters. As in the last three rounds, it is a technical discussion. It consists above all in cross-referencing the reciprocal estimates of what is possible to reduce the import and export costs induced by different standards (production costs applying different standards, certification, border control, etc.). In fact, it allows above all to continue to advance the negotiations far from the gaze of the European peoples.
Citizens against the investor-state mechanism, the stubborn Commission
While 158 civil society organizations published a joint statement on February 4 calling for the withdrawal of the chapter on regulatory cooperation (ISDS) from the agreement under negotiation, the commission is stubborn. It has even already rejected the European Citizens' Initiative project which called for the end of the TTIP and CETA transatlantic negotiations (and which collected 1,259,269 signatures).
Similarly, the Commission does not intend to take into account the results of the public consultation on one of the decisive parts of the transatlantic agreement: the dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS or ISDS in English) that it had -even launched. It is this mechanism that allows the establishment of private arbitration tribunals opposing the wishes of large companies to the laws of States defending the general interest. Unsurprisingly, 90% of the 150,000 citizens and organizations who responded to this public consultation opposed this mechanism. Commission's response: Nothing will be changed, the results of this consultation just show that European citizens have “a poor understanding” of the debate. As with the Constitutional Treaty, Brussels is already explaining to us that in reality we would not have understood anything. And while citizen mobilization is growing day by day, a European diplomat confesses “we have to get things done behind the scenes”.
Yet behind the scenes, challenges are also emerging. Of the 14 experts who form the EU's GMT Advisory Group, appointed by the Commission itself, 7 have already spoken out against the State-Investor Mechanism. On this subject, Jos Dings, director of the Transport and Environment organization and member of the EU advisory group on the GMT even indicates that "The Commission concealed the real extent of the opposition in order to advance its project of to reform the irreformable”. And already the European mediator, Emily O'Reilly, in charge of complaints against EU institutions and bodies, has denounced the lack of transparency of these negotiations.
The battle continues with Syriza!
The new Greek government, of our comrades from Syriza, has also publicly opposed the transatlantic agreement. Prior to the election, Georgios Katrougkalos, now deputy minister for administrative reform, declared “I can assure you that a parliament where Syriza holds the majority will never ratify the free trade agreement”. Indeed, at the end of the negotiations (end of 2015, beginning of 2016), the treaty should be validated by the Council of European Heads of State. At this stage the Greek government will be able to use its right of veto and refuse the treaty. And rightly, Georgios Katrougkalos adds that “It is a great service that we render not only to the Greek people but also to the European people as a whole”.
The ambiguities of the PS about the GMT
Blog note from March 13, 2015
A new report on the TTIP, (also called TAFTA, GMT and so on) is being discussed in the European Parliament. Written by German Bernd Lange, member of the Socialist and Democratic Group (S&D), it is of course in favor of the Greater Transtlantic Market project, which I have opposed for 10 years. But, as a new fact, it distances itself somewhat from the "dispute settlement mechanism", i.e. the establishment of arbitration tribunals, by contrasting it with the systems that already exist: "The settlement of disputes between States and recourse to national jurisdictions are the most appropriate means in the event of a dispute relating to investments”.
That should have been fine with the French government. While ardently supporting the transatlantic project, he nevertheless voiced some criticisms against the dispute settlement mechanism. In January, Matthias Felk, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, the Promotion of Tourism and French Nationals Abroad (phew!) even declared that "France will never accept that private jurisdictions seized by firms multinationals can call into question the democratic choices of sovereign peoples".
But, on the contrary, in a note addressed to French elected representatives by the services of Matignon, on February 24, the General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE) now defends the mechanism.
The SGAE thus specifies that "even if France considers that the inclusion of an investor-State arbitration mechanism (ISDS/ISDS) is not necessary with the United States, the draft resolution this question a little too categorically. A more cautious approach on this delicate subject could be preferable because of the risks of precedent, with States whose jurisdictional standards do not correspond to those which prevail in the United States”.
Ah, but how beautifully said! The “right” position is too clearly stated. How can we then do the opposite?
But what is France's position on this issue?
Recall that the Senate voted in February 2015 against the dispute settlement mechanism. This was done in a motion for a European resolution on the settlement of disputes between investors and States in trade agreements between the European Union, Canada and the United States. The text "Clauses, with regard to the draft agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United States, to envisage recourse to an interstate mechanism for settling investment disputes, inspired by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization, or, failing that, to remove from this draft agreement any private arbitration mechanism to settle disputes between investors and States”. This decision of the Senate itself followed the resolution of May 2013 of the National Assembly, much more direct, which demanded "that the use of a specific mechanism for the settlement of disputes between investors and States be excluded from the mandate to preserve the sovereign rights of States”.
Matthias Felk denounces today the note of the SGEA, which according to him would not have been validated...
This man should find out because, on February 21, Manuel Valls adopted, with some forty European heads of state and social democratic governments meeting in Madrid, a common provision which, by calling for the "improvement" of this mechanism, however, abandons all hope of suppression. Under the guise of "preserving the ability of States to make sovereign decisions", the text timidly asks for the exclusion of certain sectors such as health or the environment. As a result, casually, the principle of arbitration is validated.
Finally, a new note from the SGAE, received on March 4, attempts to clarify the French position, i.e. to confuse it further. It thus succeeds in denouncing and approving the mechanism in the same paragraph. The short note begins with the phrase “France considers that the inclusion of an investor-State dispute settlement mechanism is neither useful nor necessary”. To conclude in these terms “All options must remain open: in any case, France considers that the invention of new methods of settling disputes between States and investors (…) is necessary. »
It's clear: it's not clear! And when it's blurry, there's a wolf. The wolf is the PS and its government: liar, fiddler, faker, smoker. And so on.
Voting on GMT
April 1, 2015
The Foreign Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, was asked to give an opinion on the Grand Marché Transatlantique. Unsurprisingly, I voted against. Here is the explanation.
Context:
The Committee on International Trade (INTA) plans to address its recommendations (own initiative report) to the European Commission on the Greater Transatlantic Market (also known as PTCI in its exact translation or TTIP in English) . All parliamentary committees will also give their opinion to be incorporated into the main INTA report, as is the case here for the Foreign Affairs Committee. The plenary vote on the own-initiative report is scheduled for June 18.
Positive elements of AFET's opinion:
– ISDS: the text does not mention the mechanism for settling disputes between States and investors. But this is to better evade the question that is still under debate between the S&Ds and the EPP.
Negative elements of AFET's opinion:
– The United States as a privileged partner: “the United States is the major strategic partner of the European Union (…) beyond simple commercial aspects (…) from a geopolitical point of view”
– the myth of growth: “positive repercussions on jobs and growth for the two economies, which have both been weakened by the crisis”< br>– reference to common values “values shared by the European Union and the United States”
– to make them the rules of the WTO: “beyond bilateral implications by promoting the creation of regulations and common rules likely to be subsequently adopted on a global scale”; "to guide world trade and economic governance (…) in an increasingly multipolar world"
– to be imposed on third countries: "stresses that the conclusion of the transatlantic partnership opens the way to the emergence of a large space encompassing third countries with which the Union and the United States maintain close economic and trade relations"
– shale gas: claims to thus ensure "the diversification and security of the Union's energy supply and to be able to import American gas "by eliminating licensing formalities for American gas exports"
– Harmonization of regulations: "deepening of transatlantic parliamentary cooperation" and "establishment of a reinforced political framework".
- transparency: welcomes the measures taken by the Commission.
Basis of this opinion in AFET: the own-initiative report in INTA:
Rapporteur: Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany)
This own-initiative report is based on Article 108-4 of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure, which states that "At any time during the negotiations and from the end of the negotiations until the conclusion of the international agreement, the Parliament can (…) adopt recommendations requesting that they be taken into consideration before the conclusion of the agreement”.
Waiting for the opinion of all the parliamentary committees, the first version of the initiative report of the INTA commission is already available. Its explanatory memorandum is already very clearly in favor of the agreement since the objective presented is not to question the benefits of the agreement but to "relaunch the negotiations, after the appointment of the new Commission and the midterm elections in the United States” and after the two resolutions adopted by Parliament during the previous legislature (October 2012 and May 2013).
Rather positive elements of the INTA report:
– role of Parliament: recalls that “Parliament has the last word in the ratification of trade agreements (…) such an agreement therefore only comes into force with the approval of Parliament”, even if this does not is only partially true. Article 218 of the Lisbon Treaty indicates that the provisional application of an agreement is possible before approval by Parliament and even signatures by all members of the Council. This is also what was recalled by an opinion of the AFET commission (dated April 2014 - Martin report) that too often an "international agreement is signed and is subject to provisional application in accordance with Article 218, paragraph 5, without the Parliament being asked to give its consent (or being consulted) within a reasonable time”. However, the explanatory memorandum has the merit of recalling Parliament's rejection of ACTA in 2012 (or ACAC on the protection of intellectual property, particularly in the digital field) which shows that "Parliament took its role very seriously in terms of trade policy”.
– retreat on the figures announced: “a large number of studies on the economic impact of the PTCI must be considered with caution” The text even admits that this agreement “will not be enough on its own to solve the economic problems of the European Union".
- confessions on the secrecy of the negotiations: "the secrecy of the negotiations as they were carried out in the past gave rise to failures at the level of democratic control of the negotiation process" but the few recent publications of the Commission are not enough to make it a model of transparency. “the European Parliament fully supports the Council's decision to declassify the negotiating directives”. Insists on giving more information to Member States but for the sole purpose of allowing them to extol the "potential advantages" to citizens.
– ISDS is not essential but remains possible: indicates that an "equal treatment in their efforts to seek and obtain redress (…) can be done without providing for an ISDS mechanism. “the settlement of disputes between States and recourse to national jurisdictions are the most appropriate means in the event of a dispute relating to investments”. Finally, even if he recalls that Juncker "will not accept that the jurisdiction of the courts in the Member States be limited by special regimes", indicates that it is nevertheless necessary "the best way to ensure the protection of investments and the equal treatment of Investors”.
– does not want to go too fast: unlike Holland during his visit to the USA, “the content of the agreement is more important than the speed of the negotiations” leaving the time to mobilize against but also to run out of steam in the long run.
– “positive list” method for access to services markets: less worse than the negative list. The latter requires that discriminatory measures affecting all sectors be liberalized unless specific measures are set out in the list of reservations. The positive list mentions explicitly and not by default or by case law (from an ISDS for example) the sectors concerned.
– data protection: minimum request that "no commitment be made in terms of data flows data before EU data protection law is applied”
– protection of the precautionary principle: “respecting and upholding the sensitivities and core values of both parties, e.g. the EU precautionary principle European Union”
– reference to the ILO and labor law: calls for the “full and effective ratification, application and respect of the eight fundamental conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO)” on sustainable development but also respect for the Decent Work Agenda of the ILO or even the vague principle of corporate social responsibility as promoted by the OECD and calls for respect for these elements also in other chapters such as "investment , trade in services, regulatory cooperation and public contracts”.
– wishful thinking on sustainable development: The agreement should “promote the use and development of environmentally friendly goods and services”; “the development of common sustainability standards for energy production”
– protection of geographical indications: calls for “reinforced protection and recognition of European geographical indications (GIs)”
Negative elements of the INTA report
- protection of culture and audio-visual: point 21 of the negotiating mandate certainly excludes audio-visual services but not cultural services and only excludes them for the chapter on trade in services and conditions of establishment . In addition, this principle known as “cultural exception” does not exist in European law. Only the concept of “cultural diversity” is guaranteed by the treaties. There is no definition of what audiovisual services are or what culture covers. For example, according to the GATS (the General Agreement on Trade in Services of the WTO) which could well serve as a legal basis for the GMT, the world of publishing is not part of the "cultural sector" but of the "services commercial”. North Americans won't make so many distinctions, and the state-investor mechanism could allow them to attack the heart of our cultural model, via state aid.
– forcing the hand of opinion public: the explanatory memorandum is aware of "the numerous criticisms expressed by European citizens and the low support for the agreement under negotiation" but this is presented as an additional reason to pass the agreement, just by asking “the greatest possible transparency” so that “the agreement that will be reached can only be a good agreement”
- myth of growth and jobs: imagine that the agreement will allow the “reindustrialisation of Europe” and "to increase the share of the European Union's GDP from industry from 15 to 20%" or even that will "contribute to the creation of quality jobs" and other lies: "allow workers to be protected, consumers and the environment (…) strict standards so as to avoid social and environmental dumping”, to protect the “ordinary citizen”.
– the new strategy of the requirement: “even if the European Union and the United States can go further in the reciprocal recognition of standards (…) the Union will not sacrifice its standards of safety, health, its social standards, its standards of data protection or its cultural diversity”
– to make them the rules of the WTO: the GMT must be the "springboard for more ambitious trade negotiations and not a variant of the WTO process" (the GMT is only the "second best" solution) and to better break up small states: “could also lead to the development of norms and rules that will then be adopted globally, which would also benefit third countries”; “defining a common vision of international trade, investment and trade-related issues”
– Harmonization of regulations: “faced with unregulated globalization and that a well-designed trade agreement could help to take advantage of the liberalisation”.
– myth of an equal balance of power with the USA: “ensure that the possibilities of accessing markets in the various fields are comparable (…) and balanced”.
– convergence of financial regulations : more restrictive on the North American side, gives the example of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. “the free transfer of capital must comply with the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and provide, as a precautionary measure, exceptions in the event of a financial crisis”
– vagueness on energy: “facilitate gas exports natural and oil", "Nevertheless, no discrimination applies once the decision to exploit has been taken".
– sell the agreement to SMEs: "facilitate the participation of SMEs in transatlantic exchanges, for example through a common 'one-stop-shop' for SMEs"
For all these reasons, I voted against this text and continue to oppose the Grand Marché Transatlantique
Great Transatlantic Market: Arbitration tribunals move forward masked
Blog post from May 19, 2015
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, also known as “arbitration tribunals,” allows multinationals to challenge laws democratically approved by states before arbitration tribunals. This mechanism quickly became one of the central points of the protest against the TTIP. After a broad consultation in the last half of 2014, Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner in charge of trade, declared that she understood the concerns and promised to modernize an " arbitration system which is not worthy of the 21st century ".
She is therefore proposing a new version, which she believes would be more acceptable to European citizens. The few cosmetic changes are mostly aimed at giving the appearance of legality to these courts. To imitate legal justice, it is therefore proposed to add to the existing mechanism the possibility of appealing arbitration or even the appointment of permanent arbitrators with the same qualifications as national judges. But the main problem raised by this mechanism is still there: it is a question of enforcing the principle of free competition whatever the price for citizens.
Also, to go further, Cecilia Malmström proposes at the same time the creation of a “permanent tribunal” to settle disputes related to investment. It is neither more nor less than the return of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (AMI). This draft agreement, abandoned in 1998 following pressure from the people concerned, was also intended to allow companies to sue governments whose laws harm their investments (protectionism, standards, etc.) or even to hold them responsible. legally from any hindrance to their activities (demonstration, strike, etc.) on an international scale. In the same spirit, the court supported by Cecilia Malmström would operate as “an autonomous international body” or would be integrated “in an existing multilateral organization”. The scope of action of such a court is not specified but it is understood that it should be as broad as possible. Cecilia Malmström thus proposes to extend to the rest of the world this mechanism, however rejected by the European peoples. Clearly, under the guise of improvement, this proposal reinforces arbitration as a central procedure legitimizing the fact that companies have justice separate from that of citizens.
Germany and France immediately supported this project to modify the dispute settlement mechanism, even calling it a “revolution”. Matthias Felk, French Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, declared “We would like a permanent court to settle disputes to be established”. Perhaps he had forgotten the resolution voted in the National Assembly in May 2013 which demanded "that the (TTIP negotiation) mandate be excluded from the use of a specific dispute settlement mechanism between investors and States to preserve the sovereign right of States”.
But all these maneuvers are useless: The United States does not intend to modify this mechanism one inch. On May 11, Stefan Selig, US Undersecretary of Commerce, defended the mechanism which "is not intended to deprive countries of their sovereignty", but which allows "companies to invest in the world without fear of losing capital”. He even adds that "in the United States, there have been very few cases and, moreover, never in its history has the United States lost a lawsuit within the framework of an ISDS". This may be the real reason for their eagerness to subject the rest of the world to it.
Transatlantic treaty: Le Pen accomplice of the European UMPS
Press release of May 29, 2015
The Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament voted yesterday in favor of the Transatlantic Trade Treaty (TAFTA).
Far from resisting as they had made believe, the PS deputies, under the leadership of the German rapporteur Bernd Lange (SPD) voted in favor of state-corporate arbitration tribunals. Far from advocating alternative solutions about which they had spoken a lot, they purely rallied to the position of the European Commission.
I denounce this new capitulation of the social democrats who precipitate the ecological and social disaster in which this treaty leads Europe.
I salute the resistance of the GUE, Greens and French socialist Emmanuel Maurel deputies who voted against this dangerous project, as I did myself on March 31 in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
On the other hand, I note that as a perfect opponent of junk Marine Le Pen was absent during this decisive vote. The FN's desire to "let it pass" is also evidenced by the absence of its deputy Aymeric Chauprade. This confirms Marine Le Pen's refusal to oppose Europe's transatlantic alignment as several of her shifting votes on NATO had already shown.
“Total opposition to the European policy of building a Greater Transatlantic Market”
Communiqué of August 27, 2008
GMT: Authoritarian Europe is on display
October 3, 2015
The European Commission continues to prepare for the future large market with the United States of America. Discussions on the future Transatlantic Treaty are continuing. As it had already mentioned, the European Commission has confirmed these days its desire to dispense with ratification by national parliaments. More than ever, its intention is to impose this treaty in defiance of any democratic procedure.
The European Commission therefore wants to impose this treaty without a vote of the national parliamentsof each country of the European Union. According to the Treaty of Lisbon, trade policy is an “exclusive competence” of the European Union. The States provide the guidelines and then the Commission negotiates the agreements. At the end of the process, the European Parliament decides as well as the governments of the 28 countries, by a majority. This is the procedure the Commission dreams of for the Transatlantic Treaty. But between his dreams and reality, there is a long way.
Because the Transatlantic Treaty in preparation covers a very wide field. The goal is to eliminate customs duties and harmonize regulations between the United States of America and the European Union. But also to provide a mechanism to protect the interests of transnational corporations by creating private tribunals especially for them, called arbitration tribunals. We know the great figures of the multiple dangers of this project: arrival of chicken with chlorine, beef with hormones, open door to GMOs and race to the least social and ecological... I have already had the opportunity to point them out to many times since 2009, when I was the only one talking about this project.
It is therefore likely that the Transatlantic Treaty does not only fall within the "exclusive competence" of the EUbut that it also concerns a number of competences still exercised by the States or exercised jointly between the EU and the States. In this case, we speak of a “mixed agreement”. However, the “mixed agreements” must not only be ratified by the European Parliament and the Council of Governments. But also by each of the Member States according to its own procedures. In France, a treaty can be ratified by a simple law voted in Parliament, but also by referendum if the President of the Republic so decides! Without even thinking about such a democratic procedure, the European Commission has no desire to gamble the Transatlantic Treaty at the roulette wheel of ratification in each of the 28 countries. Because a single “no” vote, and everything would be blocked!
There is therefore a real possibility of blocking this treaty.Especially since under pressure from opponents, the French government finally seems to be waking up. Secretary of State for Foreign Trade Mathias Fekl is thus glaring in the South West on Monday, September 28. His reels are probably only meant to up the ante before the next round of bargaining. But what the Minister says legitimizes our criticisms! On the method first. He denounces "a total lack of transparency and great opacity" in the negotiations. He adds that this “poses a democratic problem”! He demands that "(European) parliamentarians [have] access to the documents, and this elsewhere than in the secure rooms of the American Embassy, as is the case until now" and regrets that "American parliamentarians have access to a much larger number of documents than European parliamentarians". He could have added that national parliamentarians are completely excluded.
Next, on the content of the negotiations, the French minister complained of a lack of "reciprocity" on the part of the United States of America: "there are too many asymmetries, Europe has multiplied offers, on all subjects, and has received no serious offer from the Americans in return, neither for access to their public markets, nor for access to agricultural and agri-food markets which remain closed” . He adds: “We do not feel on the American side that our wishes on services are taken into account, nor on the problem posed by arbitration by private courts. The negotiation must absolutely allow our SMEs and our farmers to have access to the American market”. He is even threatening: "if nothing changes, it will show that there is no will to reach mutually beneficial negotiations... France is considering all options, including the pure and simple cessation of negotiations !
Bigre, “the pure and simple stoppage of negotiations”! That's good, that's exactly what we're asking for. For years, the PS and the right have been advancing this project hand in hand in the European institutions. In June 2013, François Hollande authorized the opening of negotiations. He even agreed to the negotiation of a special mechanism to protect the interests of multinationals despite a vote against by the French Parliament. Since then, the PS has been hiding behind hollow formulas to hide its support for this system. It makes “reciprocity” its only argument against social, ecological or regulatory dumping. And he obviously refrains from criticizing the very logic of free trade as we do by calling for solidarity protectionism. This comedy has gone on long enough. The negotiations must be interrupted as soon as possible. This is what we will demand again during the week of action against this treaty. Several anti-TTIP marches will converge on October 16 and 17 in Brussels.
For an ecosocialist industry
October 31, 2015
Free trade destroys industries based solely on social and environmental dumping. In the European Union, these are relocations in the automotive industry, for example. The photovoltaic panel construction sector has been undermined by unfair competition from Asian production and in 2013, Angela Merkel personally intervened with the European Commission to prevent any European protectionism in this sector. The future Greater Transatlantic Market (TAFTA-TTIP) will further encourage dumping on social and environmental standards, etc.
2017: let's be rebellious France!
February 10, 2016
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is proposing his candidacy for the 2017 presidential election for a France that is rebellious and proud of it. To support him in this process, sign on the jlm2017 website and share this video.
Global warming: Sleep easy, the European Commission is watching over us!
February 26, 2016
On February 16, the Commission unveiled its new strategy on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports. Indeed, following the decrease in LNG production in Europe, imports are increasing. Thus in 2014, and for the tenth consecutive year, the Member States imported more than 50% of the energy consumed. And a third of these gas imports come from Russia, on which certain Member States are almost entirely dependent. Also to cover the energy needs of the EU, the Commission proposes to increase imports of LNG, mainly those from the USA or Canada, to obviously counterbalance the weight of Russia.
Two months after COP21 in Paris, the Commission has already forgotten its commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. And rather than foreseeing the transition to renewable energies, it accentuates dependence on carbon energies. Because natural gas is a fossil resource and is mainly composed of methane, a greenhouse gas 86 times more inducing global warming than carbon dioxide. In addition, almost half of the natural gas produced in the United States, and which will therefore be exported to Europe, is made up of shale gas obtained by hydraulic fracturing. However, hydraulic fracturing is a technique for extracting natural gas trapped in shale that is extremely harmful to the environment: pollution of groundwater, earthquakes, etc. The recently recorded emission rates indicate that the concentration of methane in the air has increased catastrophically in the shale gas producing regions of the United States. But shale gas is booming there that Washington has lifted its traditional ban on energy exports. And several liquefied shale gas export projects have already been approved.
But also, by accepting that the energy supply is dependent on imports, the Commission is jeopardizing the EU's energy security by further weakening its production capacities. The energy transition must be carried out by investing in renewable energies, to produce here what we consume here. And certainly not by building pipelines to transport ever more polluting and ever more distant energy.
Finally, while the TTIP is being negotiated, it is easy to imagine that this proposal aims above all to allow the USA to export shale gas to Europe. For better, then impose the exploitation of these shale gases directly in Europe, with the reinforcement if necessary of the arbitration courts which will not hesitate to condemn the recalcitrant States. Moreover in France, the search for shale hydrocarbons has just been authorized again in five departments (Ardèche, Drôme, Gard, Hérault and Vaucluse), after having been prohibited in 2011 by the Jacob law on hydraulic fracturing. And this despite the national opposition to these projects which will meet on February 28 in Barjac (Gard) to recall that France, like Europe, should rather renounce the exploitation of shale hydrocarbons and concentrate its financial and technological efforts. on the ecological conversion of our productive apparatus.
“France, a link within universal humanity”
February 27, 2016
Mrs. Merkel's Germany is the new backstop for the United States in Europe. She was the National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor to spy on us, she is the most willing to impose the Great Transatlantic Bargain (TTIP) with the United States. This does not abolish second-tier competition with the United States, but it signals a new hierarchy of power. On each occasion, F. Hollande runs behind like N. Sarkozy before him. Such a waste !
(…)
As for the United States of America, I am in favor of a complete review of our relationship with them. Their imperialism, their bellicose attitude in the four corners of the world, their participation in the destabilization of democratically elected governments in Latin America, their espionage against us, etc: all this is inadmissible. I would add that we have no common values with them. They apply the death penalty, not us. They have secret or illegal prisons like Guantanamo, and practice torture. They refuse most of the conventions of the International Labor Organization, have not signed the convention banning anti-personnel mines, not ratified the international convention on the ICC or that on the rights of the child. The time has come to distance ourselves. We must leave NATO, grant asylum to E. Snowden and J. Assange, stop the negotiations of the partnership between the European Union (EU) and the United States (TTIP). They must dismantle the spy station installed in their embassy in Paris. That would be laying the groundwork for another relationship. As a goodwill gesture, I agree that NASA should use the Kourou base in Guyana for its satellite launches if it needs to, as we already do with Russia.
TTIP: admissions of failure by the European Commission
March 21, 2016
The 12th round of negotiations on the TTIP was held at the end of February, addressing the issues of regulatory cooperation and rules for global trade. The European Commission is doing everything to speed up the negotiations while the main candidates for the US presidential election are backsliding on the opportunity of yet another free trade agreement with the European Union. For the multinationals, the main beneficiaries of the agreement, everything must be completed in November 2016.
Also this Monday in the Committee on International Trade, the representative of the European Commission was present to report on the follow-up given to the European Parliament resolution on the TTIP, voted in July 2015. In fact, for the Commission it was to excuse its shortcomings.Because none of Parliament's demands were taken into account in the holding of the negotiations.
Besides, does the Commission even have the will?The document clearly notes "Follow-up given to the European Parliament resolution containing the European Parliament's recommendations to the European Commission concerning the negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)” that through linguistic subtleties the Commission transformed “obligations” into “possibilities” (use of “may” instead of “shall”). Proof of her deceit and the little regard she gives to the opinions of European parliamentarians.
And on the most disputed points, the Commission's response is particularly worrying.Thus, after having assured us that protected designations were in no way threatened, we learn that the discussions on this specific subject have not been addressed and, in the opinion of the Commission representative, these remain "complicated" issues.
The same goes for the ISDS dispute settlement mechanism, rejected by parliamentarians, which would be transformed into an international court of justice. Its contours and attributions remain unclear and the only argument of the Commission representative in its favor would be that this type of mechanism is more often favorable to the EU than to the USA, at least in the disputes arbitrated to date by the WTO. We can only hope it stays the same...
On the other hand, the question of the status of the agreement (mixed or not), which would at the same time settle the question of the need for ratification by the national parliaments, is still not resolved although it is clearly fundamental.
Finally, by the very admission of the Commission representative present for this exchange "we are negotiating with a very strong partner (the USA) so it is not easy" adding that moreover "in negotiations you don't always get what you want". Obviously with such an attitude, difficult to negotiate anything.
Perhaps it would be easier to stop there, as requested by NGOs and citizens?
Antoine Deltour should not be punished for revealing LuxLeaks
April 15, 2016
You will remember that I pleaded for a protective status for whistleblowers on Tuesday. By Thursday I had my answer. The European Parliament has been seized of a directive presented by the European Commission to "protect business secrets" against "illegal disclosures". We believe we are dreaming! Heeding neither the opposition of journalists nor trade unionists from across the continent, remaining deaf to calls from civil society and many whistleblowers, he decided to go through with force. This directive aims to introduce a harmonized system for the protection of "business secrets and know-how" in Europe. Thus "natural and legal persons will have the possibility of preventing information lawfully under their control from being disclosed to third parties or acquired or used by them without their consent and in a manner contrary to honest commercial practice”.
Do you not easily understand the European concrete language? Read a second time. We see that it is in fact a question of giving multinationals the means to attack citizens who dare to denounce their actions. Trials and prosecutions against whistleblowers who revealed LuxLeaks, SwissLeaks, Dieselgate would be greatly facilitated. The defenders of this text argue that it would allow small companies to defend their production processes and their inventions against large multinationals. To say this is to be outside the realities of the global financial system. This text will only benefit large groups wishing to use business secrets to circumvent the health and social legislation and safeguards put in place by the Member States. Craftsmen and SMEs actually have nothing to gain from it.
Note also that this European directive precisely coincides with a similar initiative taken by the United States government. Because the protection of “trade secrets” would allow European and American companies to cooperate more closely without fear of malicious whistleblowers and other fanatics. The TTIP framework is being implemented in many ways. And this is not reassuring because heavy precedents exist in the United States. There, the toxic chemicals used for the exploration and exploitation of shale gas cannot be made public because they are rightly classified as "business secrets". And when the “Panama Papers” came out, Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm responsible for this unprecedented tax fraud, took the liberty of threatening the journalists who relayed the information with legal action, precisely in the name of business secrecy. .
I voted against this text, of course. But the PS voted for after muddled explanations where the socialist speaker stammered at full speed mantras without head or tail "... to protect VSEs, SMEs and whistleblowers, the Commission must propose another time and therefore j 'calls to vote for this text'.
Down with free trade! Down with CETA!
April 22, 2016
Let’s first look at the fight against the proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada. This is the main reason for my visit. Because this project is supposed to be adopted by the end of the year, perhaps even this summer. In any case before the French presidential election of 2017. The liberal and social-liberal Eurocrats who govern obviously did not plan to consult the citizens on this project. But the European Parliament will have the power to reject this agreement. Everyone will therefore have to take a clear position and assume their vote and its consequences. Because the draft agreement with Canada also serves as a draft book for the agreement between the European Union and the United States.
I am delighted to see that the fight against these two treaties under negotiation mixes the issues social, ecological, health and democratic. The refusal of free trade has been the grouping position of anti-globalizationists since the beginning and the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization. Some are still afraid of the word protectionism, but not me. If we want to bring the multinationals to heel, win new rights and preserve popular sovereignty in the face of transnational corporations, it is indeed a policy of solidarity protectionism that we will have to implement. This is what I am going to talk about with the Quebec and Canadian unions. Because one day soon, when it comes to overturning the table, you will have to know who to rely on and how to propose convergences.
Time to refresh our knowledge of the CETA affair. She is almost totally unknown in France outside of militant circles! The CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement), or AECG, (Accord Économique et Commercial Global) in French, is a new international treaty that is brewing behind our backs. An idea for a report for France 2, which on the subject of Europe could on this occasion give up making the derisory prevail over the essential? Launched in 2009, this agreement officially aims to deregulate trade between the European Union and Canada. And, as for the Grand Marché Transatlantique (GMT), to ensure the consent of the populations, everything takes place in the greatest secrecy. Thus, even the resolution voted by the European Parliament on December 10, 2013 on this subject did not contain any precise information on the content of the negotiations, apart from a few usual phrases assuring us of respect for "human rights and democracy". ". And although the resolution asked to “guarantee the full involvement, information and consultation of civil society and key stakeholders during the process”. When the negotiations were concluded in September 2014, the content of the agreement: a 500-page document, supplemented by 1,000 pages of annexes, had still not been published, either by the European Commission or by the government French.
Reading the document, we better understand their eagerness to hide its content from us. On the menu: the total abolition of customs duties to begin with. But also the "harmonization" of social, health, environmental or technical standards, via a new institution, the Regulatory Cooperation Forum, aimed at "reducing unnecessary regulatory differences" and in which representatives of large companies will always have more weight and resources than SMEs and organizations defending the general interest. This mechanism makes CETA a “living” treaty, which not only influences the current rules but modifies the decision-making processes to write the future. Finally, the treaty provides for the end of restrictions on access to public contracts and the opening of the services market. In short, liberalism at all levels.
Like the Greater Transatlantic Market (GMT), the initial CETA project provided for an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. You know, the famous private arbitration courts! There was a bit of emotion there. Public opinion being on alert because of the TAFTA treaty. The text had to be reworked to bring down the temperature which would have risen well if people had discovered that while we were hanging around with the TAFTA treaty, we were making them swallow worse with the CETA treaty... In a revised version in February 2016, this mechanism of arbitration tribunals has been replaced. The poets at work invented a system of “Court on Investment” (ICS). Pompous and verbose at will. But this system remains in any case a system of jurisdiction parallel to that of the States. It still allows investors to choose the law that will be most favorable to them between national courts and international arbitration. Moreover, the obligation for them to start by first going through the national remedies and this until they have gone to the end of the possible procedures is not provided for. Finally, this new mechanism reserves the monopoly of filing the complaint to companies! As many as they want! Nothing is foreseen in case of abuse.
In fact, this system above all makes it possible to perpetuate and institutionalize the principle of “investor versus State” arbitration. What we don't want. Because we know the consequence: the sovereignty of States and their right to regulate is limited. It remains subject to a “necessity test”. This confusing jargon means that the “referee” (the “judge”) has the power to rule on the necessity of the measures taken by governments! Yes, nothing less! An “arbiter” decides whether a government policy objective is legitimate and whether the means to achieve it are valid. We understand that in the context where the treaty is negotiated at the same time as that with the USA, the bridges are spontaneously installed! These investor protection provisions could also be used as a Trojan horse by the USA. Indeed, 81% of US companies present in Europe also have a subsidiary in Canada. They will therefore be able to use this treaty and its “Investment Court” to file a complaint against European states in the event of disagreement, even before the conclusion of the Greater Transatlantic Market. And it goes without saying that this model, since it will have been accepted with Canada, could be copied as is to draft the “final compromise” on TAFTA with the North Americans.
The procedure for ratifying this agreement, like its timetable, is still completely unclear at this time! First of all, we still do not know if the agreement will be considered mixed by the European Commission. In other words: will they also have to be voted on in national parliaments or not and not only by the EU! If the agreement is deemed to be non-mixed, all it would take is unanimous approval by the twenty-eight European governments meeting in the Council of the EU (around September 2016) and a vote in the European Parliament (scheduled for December 2016). The question is therefore: should we ask citizens for their opinions? Even Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, wants it as part of the twin agreement with the USA. At least that's what he let it be understood at the microphone of France Inter on Monday by declaring "We will need the ratification of 700 parliamentarians and 42 national parliaments (…) it will be total transparency".
It’s not easy to follow, I agree. We measure the guilt of the public service which does nothing to inform and allow understanding. However, there is urgency. Because even if the agreement is finally deemed "mixed" and must enter the tunnel of the ratification process country by country, there is still the possibility that CETA will still enter into force provisionally even before the vote of the parliaments. nationals. Because European rules allow European governments to apply provisionally, if they wish, all or part of international agreements even before their official ratification. You do not believe in it ? However, this is sometimes already the case. For example in the latest agreements with South Korea and Peru. The NGO FoodWatch refers to this as a kind of “democratic coup”.
The resistance to this agreement is nevertheless very present. On both sides of the Atlantic, unions and associations are fighting to prevent the conclusion of this treaty. And Canadians are not left behind in the challenge. I will meet on this subject, this Friday, in Montreal, various organizations at the forefront of the fight: FTQ (Federation of Quebec workers), CSN (confederation of national trade unions), Attac Quebec, CSD (confederation of democratic trade unions) and the Quebec Network on Continental Integration. Finally, on the European side, the hope is now Belgian, since it is Wallonia that threatens to block the conclusion of this agreement. Indeed in Belgium, foreign trade is a regional competence. The country will therefore need the unanimity of the regions to be able to sign the treaty. However, Wallonia opposes this through the voice of its Walloon Minister-President, Paul Magnette, who considers that there are "lack of guarantees".
The institutional challenge is certainly still a little timid but it adds to the reluctance from Bulgaria and Romania, which have also clearly announced their refusal to adopt the agreement as it stands, given Canada's refusal to abolish the visa procedure for its nationals. We are therefore a long way from the unanimity of the 28 which will be necessary for the Council to have this treaty adopted. So the battle has hope! Provided you lead it. We cannot count on the inconsistent Holland for that. Nor on the "relief" of the "republicans", just as Atlanticist and liberal. As long as we are not in charge ourselves, we can only count on the action of the civic and social society. We still have to get to work to make the issues known.
TAFTA: France submitted to Obama and Merkel?
April 25, 2016
How can François Hollande remain silent in the face of the coup by Barack Obama and Angela Merkel on the draft free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States?
The German and US governments are working hand in hand to complete the negotiations before the end of the year. The threats are still there: chicken with chlorine, beef with hormones, GMOs, mind-blowing legal privileges for multinationals against state decisions...
What is France doing? Nothing. What does Holland say? Almost nothing. Quite a joke! That's enough ! The French government must stop these negotiations and refuse this project as well as its twin brother, the CETA agreement with Canada. The time has come to build solidarity protectionism instead of full free trade.
Vivement la France insoumise!
TAFTA: France holds the candle!
April 26, 2016
Holland holds the candle! France no longer counts for anything. The German and American governments are working hand in hand to complete the negotiations before the end of the year. They reaffirmed that goal on Sunday, April 24 during a one-on-one. The day before, several thousand people had demonstrated in Germany against this TAFTA project. The next day, Merkel and Obama had an extended meeting with François Hollande, and the Italian and British Prime Ministers. Nothing worked, they announced their intention to accelerate the negotiations, just the two of them, from Sunday. So what was the point of inviting the other heads of state and government? To show them who's in charge. Already in 2013, it was Merkel and Obama who had forced the passage to launch negotiations and bring this project into an active phase after years of preparation in secret. German-American Europe is being built for the benefit of multinationals. The lamentable François Hollande looks elsewhere.
The newspaper Le Parisien confirms that our fears regarding this draft TAFTA treaty are more justified than ever. The threats mentioned in the campaign for the 2014 European elections are still there: arrival in Europe of chicken washed with chlorine, beef with hormones, facilitation of GMOs, mind-blowing legal privileges for multinationals against the decisions of States... The Parisian daily reveals that US authorities are hoping for a 33,000% increase in US chicken exports to the European Union! And all this is negotiated in the most total opacity. Parliamentarians only have the right to consult the documents in a closed room, without a telephone and without the right to divulge the information under penalty of legal proceedings. Not to mention the worst. Negotiation on a specific mechanism for multinationals to deal with their legal disputes with States continues. And this even though the French Parliament has explicitly rejected the principle of such a mechanism! But the French government accepts this violation of the French parliamentary vote without flinching. Hollande the little one swallows while gurgling rumblings.
He tries to save time. He knows that accepting this project before the presidential election would condemn him even more. So he rolls mechanics like the other evening France 2, April 14. "France has set its conditions," he said. If there is no reciprocity, if there is no transparency, if there is a danger for farmers, if we do not have access to public markets, and if on the other hand the United can have access to everything we do here, I will not accept it”. But in 2013, he accepted the opening of negotiations without any guarantees on these points and without having ever spoken about them before. And since then, he has validated each step of the process: we are already at the thirteenth negotiation session! What were his little arms and his little village cock muscles doing all this time?
And when Merkel and Obama decided on their own to call for the negotiations to be completed before the end of 2016, François Hollande remained silent. He hides. According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, it seems that he would not even have liked to broach the subject during the summit between heads of state on Monday, April 25! For what ? For fear of displeasing Obama and Merkel? Or out of fear of having to support this project? What an amazing simulator! What a permanent double face! On February 10, 2014, alongside Obama, he said that this project was "a real opportunity" and that it was necessary to "move quickly" to avoid "an accumulation of fears, threats, tensions". He even said at the time, "going fast is not a problem, it's a solution"! Sarkozy "the American" according to Besson has never done so much!
François Hollande dreams of repeating the stunt of the European budget treaty or Sarkozy's stunt with the Lisbon Treaty: rolling his eyes, promising that it won't happen like that, and so on. Before lying down in front of Merkel and signing where the lady asks. But we have the means not to be fooled once again! we won't be fooled again. If ever the treaty is finalized in 2016, it cannot be ratified before 2017. So the presidential election can function as a referendum on the subject. At this stage, we only know that the European Parliament will have to validate it as well as the Heads of State and Government.
With me, it is clear: I will never accept this treaty. In 2009, I publicly warned about this dangerous project for social and ecological rights. I was the only one then to include the condemnation of the treaty in my profession of faith in the European elections. For a long time I was alone. For the same reasons, I am still fighting France's attachment to this economic NATO, which will only benefit multinationals, and first of all American multinationals. During my trip to Canada in recent days, I also denounced the twin brother of TAFTA, the CETA agreement which is currently being concluded between the European Union and Canada. This is the TAFTA laboratory. I am opposed to both. As I write in my book The Age of the People, we must put an end to this complete free trade which destroys economies. It lowers social, environmental or health standards. It gives all the rights to the multinationals to the detriment of any other consideration. Finally, it spawns a permanent world move system by exploding the transport of goods from one end of the planet to the other.
During the time of Lionel Jospin, the French government had already put an end to an agreement of this type. It was the precursor agreement in terms of advantage given to investors against States: the MAI. We must do the same. Stop the “negotiations” and refuse these two transatlantic treaties. The logic of free trade is an old thing without economic efficiency. It only serves to wrap with fine words a demolition of all societies on the grounds of the lowest social and ecological. Cooperation rather than free trade! This is why solidarity protectionism must be put on the agenda.
TAFTA: for us, it's no!
May 2, 2016
Since 2009, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been fighting against the Greater Transatlantic Market project between Europe and the United States. This video brings together some of his interventions on the subject. To find all the contributions of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the subject, click here.
