When President Obama visits Brussels for a summit meeting at the end of March, governments will be hoping negotiations on an EU-US ‘trade’ deal are about halfway through.
However, the European Commission blinked early in the face of widespread hostility to the secretive talks. So March will also mark the start of a three-month consultation on one controversial component – private business tribunals – which would allow corporations to sue governments over claims that legislation had reduced their profits. The planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is not really about trade. It is about turning business deregulation into permanent policy on both sides of the Atlantic, without any democratic opportunity for future change.
