TTIP:
In Praise of 'Click Activists' and the 'Outrage Industry' (Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, Germany)
"According
to Joachim Pfeiffer, economic policy spokesman for the Bundestag's Christian Democrats,
all of the protesting against TTIP can be attributed to organized online gangs
of 'click activists,' which are in no way legitimate. … To claim, like Pfeiffer
does, that resistance is coming from loud 'misinformed people' makes the
economic policy spokesman himself seem under informed. Because in addition to
dozens of initiatives, legal and economic experts from Harvard, Yale, Columbia
and Berkeley, led by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz,
have also been loudly and publicly opposing the agreement and its consequent
privatization of the law."
To motivate potential whistleblowers to leak classified
Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] documents, about 3,000
people have donated over $100,000. TTIP is the multi-billion dollar trade
agreement that the U.S. and E.U. have been bargaining over out of public view since
2012. It appears to cozy up to the larger enterprises: In addition to official
negotiations, around 600 meetings with lobbyists and company representatives have
been held, as has been revealed by research and freedom of information
requests.
WikiLeaks, which had called for the money to be collected,
now promises the six-figure bounty to TTIP-informants. The fact that such a
large amount of money was collected in just a few short weeks testifies to the
growing interest in the secret talks. After all, this agreement involves not
only rules on tariffs and commercial rights, investor protection and the
much-discussed right of investors to sue states, but also consumer rights, food
safety, environmental standards, copyright and data protection. Even
controversial details like the use of hormone therapy in animal breeding and
animal cloning are under discussion.
The lead negotiators are Ignacio
Garcia Bercero [for the E.U. - video, right] and Dan
Mullaney [for the U.S.]. It is they who will have
to clarify details like those just mentioned and any others that emerge before
the European Parliament and European Council are ultimately asked to approve
TTIP and implement it. When that will occur is unknown - except that it seems
nearly impossible during the remainder of the Obama presidency. The approval of
national parliaments in Europe is irrelevant as this will not interfere with
the provisional application of the agreement.
Analog Reading Rooms
In addition to general criticism of free trade and the
shadow legal system it envisions, the crux of the matter on both sides of the
Atlantic is the lack of transparency of the talks. While there is a stack of
papers labeled TTIP in special "reading rooms," access is limited to
a few dozen members of the German government who have registered to read them.
They may read for two hours and use "pen or pencil and paper" to take
down some key points. Prohibited, however, are "mobile phones, cameras or
recording equipment of any kind." TTIP negotiations appear to have entered
the milieu of espionage.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Whether and when this ludicrous analog permission to read
has been made use of remains unclear. At a press conference this summer with
members of the federal government, not a single German ministry could confirm
that any of its members had in fact examined the aforesaid documents in those
special reading rooms. Even employees of the Ministry of Economic Affairs
involved in the matter could not provide an answer. They first needed time to
investigate.
This fits the pattern, because what has been announced in
the political arena on the matter of TTIP is a series of statements ranging
from embarrassment to falsehood. In the latter category, Bundestag President
and leader of the Christian Democrats Norbert Lammert
proclaimed loudly last year that, "a boost in annual growth of €119
billion ($135 billion) on the European side and €95 billion ($108 billion) on
the American side" could be expected from the transatlantic trade deal. It
was grotesque misinformation to use estimates of a decade of GDP growth to jazz
up what he called "annual growth momentum." He was forced to retract.
Small Talk and Finger
Food
His party colleague Joachim Pfeiffer, economic policy
spokesman for the Bundestag's Christian Democrats, is, like Lammert,
not known as a critic of big business. During a heated Bundestag debate on
October 1st, Pfeiffer called for arguments showing that TTIP is "the best
free trade agreement we've ever had." He then launched into a tirade
against the "outrage industry" which he suspects is behind the global
campaign against TTIP. According to Pfeiffer, all of the protesting against
TTIP can be attributed to organized online gangs of "click
activists," which are in no way legitimate – and he said that no one has
read the TTIP documents the government has made available. What Pfeiffer failed
to point out is that: Even to have this handful of documents put online, the
E.U. Commission's online consultation required the participation of 150,000
E.U. citizens. The documents that were then provided only convey the situation
of the talks months ago and since May, there have been
no updates.
Should the world's largest corporations be permitted to continue writing the legislation meant to oversee them, playing...
No one should be surprised at the protests that originate
online, since that is precisely the place discussions today are held. But to
claim, like Pfeiffer does, that resistance is coming from loud
"misinformed people" makes the Christian Democratic economic policy
spokesman himself seem under informed. Because in addition to dozens of
initiatives, legal and economic experts from Harvard, Yale, Columbia and
Berkeley, led by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz [video, right],
have also been loudly and publicly opposing the agreement and its consequent
privatization of the law. Even the competent rapporteur of the European
Parliament has joined the protests, opposes the [supra-national] arbitration it
proposes, and can hardly be accused of being "uninformed."
This week things will likely bring a showdown, as a mass
demonstration against TTIP is being held in
Berlin on October 10th to bring demands for civil society to be involved
out into the streets. One recalls the failure of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
in 2012. And most certainly, the so-called "click activists" of the
"outrage industry" will not be looking for small talk and finger
food.
