Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow will launch a 12-city, 8-country speaking tour in Europe this Sunday. The tour is focused on opposing the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the United States-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision.
The Council of Canadians began opposing CETA in October 2008 when a joint Canada-EU study first recommended a trade agreement should be pursued. Over the years we have intervened during various rounds of CETA talks. It is now believed that the translation of the final text could be completed in spring/ summer 2016 and that the ratification process could begin shortly afterwards. As such, after seven years of fighting this we could now be entering the last year of this epic campaign.
On her speaking tour, Barlow will go to Dundee (Nov. 1), Manchester (Nov. 2), Leeds (Nov. 3), London (Nov. 5), Oxford (Nov. 6), Cardiff (Nov. 7), Dublin (Nov. 8), Madrid (Nov. 10-11), Barcelona (Nov. 12), Vienna (Nov. 16-17), Karlsruhe (Nov. 24-25) and Paris (Nov. 29). Council of Canadians executive director Garry Neil will also be speaking in Berlin (Nov. 10-11), Paris (Nov. 12-14) and Brussels (Nov. 17).
Our partners on this tour include Global Justice Now in the UK; Ecologistas en accion (Ecologists in Action) and the Stop TTIP coalition in Spain; ATTAC (the Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens) in Austria; Campact in Germany; and ATTAC, Friends of the Earth, the Stop TAFTA coalition and AITEC (the International Association of Technicians, Experts and Researchers) in France.
Barlow has also written a new report titled Fighting TTIP, CETA and ISDS: Lessons from Canada that was released today.
In it she notes, “As a result of NAFTA, Canada is the most investor-state challenged country in the developed world and Canadians have an important story to share with Europeans as they grapple with these two trade agreements. This paper is offered as a warning to Europeans who care about the health of their people, the resilience of their communities, the fate of public services and the protection of their natural resources. …This report was written in an attempt to show Europeans why CETA is as important as TTIP and to help build the movement among Canadian, European and American activists and organizations fighting these pernicious trade and investment agreements.”
Following this tour, Barlow will return to Europe in early 2016 to lobby Members of the European Parliament against CETA before the ratification votes begin.
For more on our campaign against CETA, please click here.
Further reading
Dundee to host first stop on tour warning of dangers of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (Scottish newspaper article)
