TTIP opponents are planning a mass rally in Hanover on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s visit by US President Barack Obama, where he is expected to promote the trade deal when he joins Merkel to open the northern German city’s industrial trade fair.
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Given the lack of political capital available to a “lame duck” president, U.S. and European analysts said, the White House was more likely to aggressively pursue ratification of one of Obama’s signal achievements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP) with Asia, than to struggle to complete negotiations on TTIP.
A coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and consumer protection groups gathered in front of Hanover’s opera house ahead of a march through the city center expected to draw around 50,000 people.
“Many people from NGOs have been able to look at the documents, for example in the English version of the CETA agreement, and there we can clearly see that these are not just fears”, said Hanni Gramann, of the “alter-globalisation” organisation Attac.
Protesters held signs reading “Don’t Give TTIP a Chance”, featuring the image of a bull tagged “privatization” and a cow branded “democracy”.
Alfred de Zayas, an American law professor and U.N. human rights expert, argues that such courts are unnecessary in countries that abide by the rule of law, such as the United States or the EU’s 28 nations.
Speaking separately in London on Saturday, Obama said the trade deal had run up against “parochial interests” of individual countries but would create millions of jobs and billions of dollars of benefits.
The negotiations were launched three years ago, and the next round is due to open on Monday in NY.
But “medium-sized breweries in particular could improve their market opportunities” as a result of the US-EU trade deal, said Merkel, flanked by beer queen Marlene Speck and Bavaria’s Economics Minister Ilse Aigner.
“The rights in America for workers are much lower”.
The anti-free-trade alliance organising the protest is made up of numerous associations, trade unions, artists and church groups, who fear that TTIP and CETA could threaten Germany’s environmental and legal standards.
The “Yes” camp has shrunk to 15 per cent from 53 per cent, while almost half – 46 per cent – say they feel too ill-informed to have an opinion. The two sides are also divided about the issue of tariff reductions and the opening up of the markets for services and procurement.
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“In order to achieve negotiating success this year, it will be crucial to make significant progress by the summer on technical questions, so that the final negotiations are restricted to a few, politically sensitive areas”, said Andreas Audretsch, the ministry spokesman.
