23 September 2016

Austrian and French Ministers have advocated abandoning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in its current form after widespread protests.

Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mittlerlehner said the deal now has many "negative connotations" after the backlash from populations across the EU.

He said it should be relaunched under a new name after the US elections and that this time the negotiations should be transparent instead of conducted behind closed doors.

French Trade Minister Matthias Fekl told Handeslblatt newspaper: "A crazy machine is moving here, the negotiations are a failure, nobody believes that they will come to a successful conclusion," according to Reuters.

Several EU Ministers have said the US is less open to compromise than Canada, with which the EU is also negotiating a free trade deal called the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

"The Americans have not been willing to make offers the way Canada has so it's guaranteed there will be no agreement this year," German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel stated.

It seems clear that greater awareness of international free trade deals and their implications is leading to increasing condemnation of such agreements among voters. President of the IER Professor Keith Ewing recently warned the Joint Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights that workers' rights will be eroded by an environment of "mutually assured non-compliance" to the International Labor Organisation's core principles of freedom of association, no discrimination, no child labour, and no forced labour. He explained that other countries will not be willing to raise their standards to those of EU member states and that the deals would lead to a regression to the mean on human rights.

The IER's cautions join those of a whole host of other organisations, who are warning about the threat to workers rights', public health and the environment represented by international free trade deals. Read more on warnings over CETA, TTIP and TiSA.