Industry association protests against TTIP negotiations
In its open letter, the industry association demands the TTIP negotiations to be stopped immediately and be freshly launched under public participation. Likewise, the association also demands to restart the CETA negotiations. CETA stands for Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. While TTIP refers to the trade between the European Union and the USA, CETA regulates the trade between EU and Canada.
In an interview with eeNews Europe, AMA general manager Thomas Simmons explained the motivation of the association for this unusual measure. "Our primary concern is the way these negotiations are conducted secretly – not even the members of national and EU parliaments have access to the negotiations", he said. "In stark contrast to this is the fact that about 600 large corporations are directly involved". He pointed out that AMA, representing an export-oriented industry, advocates open trade. "But these negotiations are not open, and we believe that they exclusively serve the needs or large industry groups". Simmons added.
In his argumentation, AMA basically followed the critics that have been aired earlier by civil rights campaigns throughout Europe – the lack of transparency, the intended jurisdiction that effectively overrides democratic ways of decision-making, and the little benefit for the European industry. "They promise additional sales in the trade between Europe and the US of €120 billion", Simmons said. "But this is less than 0.05% of Europe’s GDP annually – less than the impact of the weather."
AMA embraces some 480 companies and research institutes active in the field of sensor and measurement technology. Launched in 1981 in Germany, the majority of these entities are headquartered in Germany, but AMA also has members from other German-speaking countries in Europe such as Switzerland and Austria as well as from virtually all European countries. Its most visible activity is organising the annual Test & Measurement trade fair in Nuremberg.
Remains one question: If the TTIP negotiations are a matter of the EU Commission and the United States of America, why did the association address their open letter to the German chancellor? "We felt that she can move something", Simmons answered. "We were afraid that it would simply peter out if we direct it to the European Commission".
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