A smaller version of TTIP is also in the works with Canada, and that deal, called CETA, is due to be signed in October.
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Participants waved banners demanding “democracy instead of TTIP” and “share, don’t divide”.
A truck is pictured in front of the Brandenburg Gate during a demonstration supporting Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) organized by the Initiative New Social Market Economy (Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft) in Berlin, Germany September 15, 2016. Police estimates for other cities were reportedly somewhat lower.
Organisers of the “Stop TTIP & CETA – for a fair world trade” protests are hoping more than 250,000 people will turn out for the demonstrations in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich. Negotiators are working towards eliminating most tariffs.
“CETA and TTIP threaten environmental and consumer protection for millions of people in Europe and North America”, said Jennifer Morgan, head of Greenpeace International.
But the plans face opposition in Europe from citizens as well as some governments.
But critics on the SPD’s left wing are sceptical about the benefits of the deal and believe it would give multinationals greater access to European markets without creating jobs.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has echoed much of the conservative rhetoric that high unemployment means that the European Union needs free trade agreements to prop up the economy and boost investment.
“We will get a majority vote”, German Vice Chancellor and Economic Affairs Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters in Montreal.
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom defended the planned trade deals and accused the opponents of deliberately heating up the debate with “horror stories and lies”.
Suspicions are running high in Germany against the accords.
Protesters argued that the trade agreements would favor industrialized agricultural production over craft-based food production not involving genetic engineering, cost thousands of jobs and lead to lower standards on employment and food safety.
About 28 per cent of Germans had doubts about what advantages would result from the two trade deals, according to a survey published on Friday by the Ipsos Institute. More than half (52 percent) say it would lead to weaker standards and spawn increasingly inferior products.
Peter Gauweiler, who left Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and resigned as an MP in protest against her handling of the eurozone crisis, has called TTIP and CETA “a danger for democracy”.
Writing in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, he denounced the proposed special court as a “form of secular sharia of capitalist managers”.
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“A further lowering of tariff barriers, the dismantling of bureaucracy and global standardization are rather cost-effective methods to create greater wealth that future generations can benefit from”, he wrote.
