Meet The Corporations Lobbying The Hardest For TTIP And Ending Democracy
By Graham Vanbergen
ActivistPost.com
FEBRUARY 17, 2016
It is quite incredible that the unelected bureaucrats of the EU Commission are even entertaining such an idea as the deeply unpopular TTIP trade deal amid huge citizen protest whilst already facing multiple episodes of social, political and economic unrest and crisis as the demise of the European project gathers pace.
The EU is experiencing extensive political threats and upheaval from left and right of center political groups angry at EU imposed austerity. Greece is being raped by its so-called partners and it is just one of several other EU states en-route to ruin.
The declining global economic picture provides all the more reason for the corporations to look for new avenues of revenue. But which businesses are pushing most for the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP? And who is really influencing EU negotiators? And just how are the rights of European citizens represented in the biggest trade deal in history?
Just in Brussels alone, there are now over 30,000 corporate lobbyists, shadowy agitators as The Guardian puts it, who are responsible for influencing three quarters of legislation in the EU. But even they are left in the shade when it comes to the power being afforded to corporations in the TTIP negotiations.
The US Chamber of Commerce, the wealthiest of all US corporate lobbies, and DigitalEurope (whose members include all the big IT names, like Apple, Blackberry, IBM, and Microsoft) are there.
BusinessEurope, the European employers’ federation and one of the most powerful lobby groups in the EU are there.
Transatlantic Business Council, a corporate lobby group representing over 70 EU and US-based multinationals. ACEA, the car lobby (working for BMW, Ford, Renault, and others) and CEFIC, the Chemical Industry Council (lobbying for BASF, Bayer, Dow, and the like) are all there.
The Rest…HERE
