Is the incoming European president planning on removing ISDS from the EU-USA trade deal?

Date: 22 October 2014

Negotiations on TTIP have provoked strong opposition, with over a thousand actions taking place across Europe on Saturday 11 October, with a thousand people protesting in Parliament Square, London and dropping a banner across the length of Westminster Bridge. In just over one week more than 600,000 people signed a petition opposing the trade deal. Campaigners fear the treaty will give unprecedented power to multinational corporations, risking privatisation of public services and dilution of environmental standards and workers’ rights.

Nick Dearden, the director of the World Development Movement said:

“If the ISDS was to be removed from TTIP it would be a huge victory for the thousands of people across Europe who have been taking to the streets to oppose it. But this is just one aspect of the negotiations that people are concerned about. The rest of the deal still constitutes a massive corporate power grab and getting rid of ISDS is just one step towards derailing the whole package.”

“It’s a no-brainer that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to sue member states for protecting their citizens’ interests – so ISDS should never have been on the table in the first place.