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Today, negotiators meet in Brussels to finalise an EU-Canada “free trade” deal, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta). Like the EU-US deal being discussed, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Ceta contains a controversial clause to allow large companies to sue governments over decisions they believe could harm their profits. This “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) system circumvents existing court systems and could be a barrier to democratic policymaking.
In Britain, Ceta could threaten the NHS, public education and other public services, as well as our ability to regulate a host of industries from fracking to finance. Despite widespread public concern over ISDS, trade negotiators have seen fit to keep it in Ceta. If the British government doesn’t challenge it this week, neither European or British parliaments have the ability to amend a deal whose text still remains formally secret. Today is business secretary Vince Cable’s last chance to use the UK’s veto to remove ISDS from Ceta, to protect our democracy from the corporate power-grab proposed by this deal. We urge him to do so.
Nick Dearden Director, World Development Movement, John Hilary Executive director, War on Want, Sally Hunt General secretary, University and College Union, Christine Blower General secretary, National Union of Teachers, Helen Drewery General secretary, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Ruth Bergan Coordinator, Trade Justice Movement
• The GMB revealed at a TUC fringe meeting on Sunday that as well as TTIP (Report, 8 September) it is fighting TiSA (the global Trade in Services Agreement) and the “Trojan horse” EU-Canada Ceta. These are the final pieces in the neoliberal jigsaw, handing over control of our rights and services to the multinationals.
John Airs
Liverpool
• Despite forever banging on about the repatriation of “powers” from Europe, the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party and Ukip appears content to surrender vast swaths of UK sovereignty to multinational agribusiness, pharmaceutical and energy companies. Hypocrisy – or self-interest?
Wal Callaby
Ipswich
• Amid the furore about hacking of celebrity images, your writers (on 6 September) identify very real wider dangers in the communications revolution already spinning beyond control. Zoe Williams uses “citizen porn” examples to show how phones are now data terminals; Ian Sample explains how inequalities in wealth impact on health and our genetic futures; Charles Arthur shows how increasingly rapid and easy connection has dark downsides.
Last week I joined European doctors discussing the information sharing being pressed on them in the name of patient access but also cost efficiencies. There is no doubt that the rapidly expanding global use of so-called e-health, m-health, the cloud and all the new gadgets we may soon all have to carry to monitor our vital signs, have massive potential benefits.
But private research priorities based on profit have not necessarily addressed equitable human needs.For business knowledge is power. I refuse to allow increasingly privatised health services to access my personal data when I cannot know the purposes for which it may be used or abused. If I had secrets, for example concerning abortion or sexual health, I could be even more vulnerable to exploitation, threat, blackmail or persecution as those who had hoped their playtime images were inviolable. But I would not have access to Hollywood lawyers, and little protection for my rights.
Multinational corporations are driving this revolution, irrespective of predictable and unforeseen consequences. There is urgent need for global oversight backed by local and EU powers and rights to ensure new communications tools are harnessed for good.
Clive Needle
Director, EuroHealthNet
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