The Lisbon Treaty has provided the European Parliament (EP) with significant amounts of power in trade policy. Before Lisbon, trade deals were mainly negotiated by the Commission. Now, the Parliament has to give its consent to international trade agreements. It is time for an assessment. One example from my life…

TTIP website of the Greens/EFA group online The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament has set up a new web site on TTIP. There you can find campaign videos, up-to-date information and much useful background material. http://ttip2014.eu/   Two LSE studies about ISDS There are two new studies of the…

Bananas are only one of countless examples for the wrongfullness incorporated in our trading system. This video is made to illustrate how much – or better – how little the planters are making off of one convetionally traded banana and who makes the profit instead if them. It is a…

Parliament Resolution on the General System of Preferences (GSP) In January 2014, the new GSP-regulation will become operative. The GSP allows preferred access for the products of developing countries to the EU-Market. Within the scope of the new competences through the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament has now the opportunity to…

Hearing on social and environmental standards in trade agreements In a hearing in the trade committee the International Labor Organisation (ILO) presented a study which compared the effectiveness of social and environmental standards in trade agreements of the EU and the USA. The study concludes that the US’ system is…

Watch the full video or read what Ska said:  – Mr President, the US has always paid lip service to multilateralism but in fact it has been undermining these goals since 2007: embarking on complementary approaches such as bilateral, regional or plurilateral agreements. We need a real commitment to multilateralism and,…

TTIP The second negotiating round, which was postponed due to the US-American shutdown, is taking place this week (11 – 15 November). Market access (especially investment and services), tariffs as well as energy and raw materials are on the agenda. The third negotiating round will take place in December as…

Fires in factories in Bangladesh In the Trade Committee the Bangladeshi ambassador reported on progress with social standards and the factories’ security. The responsible for the factories, in which the fires occurred, have been arrested. 200 additional inspectors are made available for security checks in the factories. The ambassador lauded…

TiSA, the Trade in Services Agreement is one of the most important agreements that is currently negotiated apart from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) between the EU and USA. On 8th of July the second round of negotiations between the EU and 21 other countries (including the…

Today, there  exist numerous bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Their goal is to stimulate  foreign direct investments (FDIs) by granting investors special rights and  better protection against arbitrary and ‘unjust’ acts from the state authority.  However, the way most BITs are designed goes far in the wrong direction. The  majority of…