Notes Session
Introduction about key elements about TTIP.
- Investor state dispute settlement mechanism
- Regulatory cooperation
With this treaty multinational corporations will have the right to participate in any new legislation, without democratic accountability.
The more people know about TTIP (or CETA or TiSA) the less support there is for these agreements.
It is not about transparency, is about the content of the treaties.
There is strong demand for more transparency on these negotiations. And for political decision making in general.
Accountability is a key issue. Some countries like the US have impeachment systems, others like Spain do not. EU institutions like the ECB have no accountability or democratic control. Big improvement is needed. ECB cut liquidity of Greek banks when population voted twice to end austerity. ECB is an example of unaccountable institutions.
Some in the room feel total transparency is not absolutely necessary, but regular access to what has been agreed is. Also important to have the capacity to understand what is included in the deals, civil society and journalists are key in this regard.
Political representatives have strong responsability in using their position to truly defend those who are representing. Additional control mechanisms would be good. For instance each year or two years having to publish which decisions they have made, why, and how much money was involved.
Thanks to all for participating.
Extra:
Another discussion in this session: where and when do we want to monitor our own governments? How frequently? Every 4 years, every decision, something in between? List of means to judge our governments' decisions:
- Elections
- Collective action (social media etc.)
- Referendums/polls
Also, on the side of government itself, a transparency institution could be installed to control for the amount/quality of information released regarding each governmental decision. In some countries there already is a raw version of this institution (US).