1 00:00:00,190 --> 00:00:05,180 The United States and Europe have been negotiating since 2013 the most ambitious commercial treaty in history. 2 00:00:05,180 --> 00:00:10,060 The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership, also known as TTIP... 3 00:00:10,060 --> 00:00:16,079 Surrounded by secrecy and developed behind citizens' backs, the TTIP is the new Trojan horse of the neoliberal project. 4 00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:19,070 ...and drive growth and prosperity around the world... 5 00:00:19,070 --> 00:00:25,120 Economic growth for the benefit of big business at the expense of social and environmental rights. 6 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:31,200 Huge economic benefits are expected from reducing red tape, avoiding divergent regulations for the future. 7 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:37,190 Behind TTIP there lies an undercover coup d'etat by corporations of the sovereignty of the countries. 8 00:00:37,190 --> 00:00:48,240 ...in shaping the way we work and the way we live our daily lives... 9 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:54,230 Although they say that free trade benefits local communities and the farmers 10 00:00:54,230 --> 00:00:59,120 because they could sell their products freely and on an international scale, this is totally false. 11 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:06,230 Free trade basically benefits the large businesses with headquarters in Europe and North American 12 00:01:06,230 --> 00:01:12,000 to the detriment of the small farmers, whether in the North or the South. 13 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,070 We want industrial activity and we want businesses on both continents. 14 00:01:16,070 --> 00:01:23,010 What we don't want is that big businesses which have subsidiary companies everywhere 15 00:01:23,010 --> 00:01:27,080 can have benefits that other industrial initiatives don't have. 16 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:33,180 The big transnational companies are trying to impose their standards 17 00:01:33,180 --> 00:01:39,020 for making more trade all over the sea. And this is their problem. 18 00:01:39,020 --> 00:01:42,210 They mean that the governments, the EU, 19 00:01:42,210 --> 00:01:49,080 are going to be obliged to change their rules in their internal market. 20 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:54,200 Of the 560 meetings organized by the Commission before the beginning of the official negotiations, 21 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,040 the greatest number were for the agribusiness lobby, 22 00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:02,220 which reflects how important the approval of the treaty is for this industry. 23 00:02:02,220 --> 00:02:10,009 As the European lobby recognizes, their priority regarding the negotiations is the elimination of any legal obstacle, 24 00:02:10,009 --> 00:02:14,030 harmonizing the regulations and standards on both sides of the Atlantic. 25 00:02:14,030 --> 00:02:17,130 Their North American counterparts seem to share the same objectives, 26 00:02:17,130 --> 00:02:20,220 emphasizing the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, 27 00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:24,130 as well as the hormones and growth promoting agents or the GMOs, 28 00:02:24,130 --> 00:02:28,050 which currently create obstacles for the exportation of their products to Europe. 29 00:02:28,050 --> 00:02:32,220 The negotiators have made their position about this pressure from agribusiness clear. 30 00:02:32,220 --> 00:02:40,010 A market access for industrial and agricultural products and, of course, the rules of origen for those products. 31 00:02:40,010 --> 00:02:46,170 We have the regulatory and standards group which focuses on technical regulations, 32 00:02:46,170 --> 00:02:51,050 sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, primarily in the area of food safety... 33 00:02:51,050 --> 00:02:55,140 And they say so, they call it "reducing trade barriers", "reducing regulatory barriers", 34 00:02:55,140 --> 00:03:00,090 "reducing non-tariff trade barriers". These are the things that regular people describe as 35 00:03:00,090 --> 00:03:08,210 protection for our food, guarantees about clean air and water, making sure that our products are safe. 36 00:03:08,210 --> 00:03:12,090 It's true, our production costs are higher 37 00:03:12,090 --> 00:03:17,160 due to very stringent animal welfare requirements, very stringent environmental requirements... 38 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:23,040 The object of the TTIP is to lower food standards and dietary health in the Union 39 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:29,090 because if we compare the laws, those of the European Union are much more restrictive. 40 00:03:29,090 --> 00:03:35,200 The EU biotechnology approval process is slow and often influenced more by politics than science. 41 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:41,050 EU market should provide consumer choice for biotech and non-biotech products. 42 00:03:41,050 --> 00:03:46,200 What we are really afraid of is that our current rules on genetically modified organisms 43 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:54,070 and the traceability of those, the labelling of those will be really impacted. 44 00:03:54,070 --> 00:03:59,140 The European Union requires all products derived from biotechnology to be labelled, 45 00:03:59,140 --> 00:04:03,010 which prevents the entry of many North American products. 46 00:04:03,010 --> 00:04:06,010 In spite of ever-more permissive regulations in Europe, 47 00:04:06,010 --> 00:04:09,110 the number of hectares dedicated to the cultivation of these products is still a minority. 48 00:04:09,110 --> 00:04:14,200 In the United States, however, the transgenic crops grown there represent 40% of all those grown throughout the world. 49 00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:20,190 In the majority of the countries of the EU what is of prime importance regarding GMOs is the precautionary principle: 50 00:04:20,190 --> 00:04:30,040 if we don't know what impact the consumption of a food might have in the future, it is not to be sold. 51 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:35,070 In some leaked documents, what we have seen is that the US 52 00:04:35,070 --> 00:04:40,050 are putting into question the application of the precautionary principle in Europe. 53 00:04:40,050 --> 00:04:46,040 And it will have to be the consumers through their associations who in the end, when the product is on the market, 54 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:51,200 show that it creates problems for health. Of course, this means going against a multinational business, 55 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:55,050 which without doubt is much more powerful than the ordinary citizen. 56 00:04:55,050 --> 00:04:57,240 Yeah, I am for labelling, I mean, but what I am really for is eradication. 57 00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:03,130 As the TTIP could identify the labelling of the GMOs as "trade barriers", 58 00:05:03,130 --> 00:05:09,200 this would give the industry a new weapon to block the efforts of consumers to regulate them in the United States, 59 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:18,210 as well as threatening European security policies and opening their borders to these products. 60 00:05:18,210 --> 00:05:25,010 We know that 70% of all food In the US supermarkets contains genetically modified ingredients. 61 00:05:25,010 --> 00:05:27,080 We have said in Europe: We don't want them. 62 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:30,150 And yet, under these new rules, it will be impossible to keep them out. 63 00:05:30,150 --> 00:05:39,080 Today in Europe basically what is produced on a large scale is only one type of GMOs, the MON810 corn of Monsanto. 64 00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:48,030 If we compare this with the United States, there they produce 150 or more transgenic crops, mainly corn or soy beans. 65 00:05:48,030 --> 00:05:57,240 A massive permissiveness of GMOs production will lead to environmental consequences because as has been demonstrated, 66 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:08,210 the coexistence of transgenic and conventional, and ecological farming is totally impossible, due to the contamination. 67 00:06:08,210 --> 00:06:14,140 There are experiences of communities affected by the use of phytosanitary products 68 00:06:14,140 --> 00:06:22,090 associated with the transgenic plants resistant to herbicides. Specifically, the application of the star herbicide Roundap, 69 00:06:22,090 --> 00:06:26,080 which is used in plantations of transgenic soy beans. 70 00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:31,220 This could lead to severe consequences for the environment and public health. 71 00:06:31,220 --> 00:06:36,070 The standards in the European Union that establish the maximum levels of pollution 72 00:06:36,070 --> 00:06:40,040 currently block 40% of North American food products. 73 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:47,210 Hence the efforts on the part of agribusiness to eliminate the standards and unblock the exportation of these products. 74 00:06:47,210 --> 00:06:53,140 We can say that transgenics are the maximum expression of privatization of life 75 00:06:53,140 --> 00:06:57,230 and of the manipulation of life for private and commercial objectives. 76 00:06:57,230 --> 00:07:04,020 Ultimately, the pursuit of profit by the big seed companies and the biotechnological industries 77 00:07:04,020 --> 00:07:11,030 goes way beyond the question of what the transgenics are, and leands to sequestering agriculture, seeds and common property 78 00:07:11,030 --> 00:07:21,130 and relegating the farmer to the position of someone the big agricultural companies of the sector can do without. 79 00:07:21,130 --> 00:07:26,180 It can have a big impact on the rights also of small and medium size farmers 80 00:07:26,180 --> 00:07:31,140 who are having it already difficult to compete now with big agribusiness 81 00:07:31,140 --> 00:07:40,220 and that will it have even more difficult to compete after the trade deals. 82 00:07:40,220 --> 00:07:44,130 The greater concentration of production in the hands of the corporations of agribusiness 83 00:07:44,130 --> 00:07:48,100 has led to the reduction of the number of farms in the United States. 84 00:07:48,100 --> 00:07:55,160 At the present time there are only 2 million North American farms versus 13 million in Europe 85 00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:59,230 but the average size for a farm in the United States is 13 times that of European farms. 86 00:07:59,230 --> 00:08:04,040 A lot of farmers will disappear. They will run out of their... 87 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:09,220 They will have to leave their farms because they cannot earn a decent living anymore. 88 00:08:09,220 --> 00:08:17,230 This process is already going on. It has started since the markets have been more liberalized. 89 00:08:17,230 --> 00:08:25,140 And this is also our concern. Who will produce our food in 15 years? 90 00:08:25,140 --> 00:08:31,070 The same people who at the time made money with the real estate bubble, once the bubble burst, 91 00:08:31,070 --> 00:08:35,200 looked for new sources of business in order to speculate and make money. 92 00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:40,000 And what would be better than food since all of us have to eat every day. 93 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:44,200 We can say that we have gone from the real estate bubble to the food bubble. 94 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:50,040 The taking over of land by investment funds and international corporations of agribusiness 95 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:52,190 has greatly increased in the last years. 96 00:08:52,190 --> 00:08:59,030 Just in 2008 gained control of 55 million hectares, a surface the equivalent to the size of France. 97 00:08:59,030 --> 00:09:04,020 Every 6 days farmland the size of London is sold to foreign investors. 98 00:09:04,020 --> 00:09:09,120 And in Europe we are witness to the disappearance every day of more than 1000 farms. 99 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:15,200 If the farmers disappear, we will have to ask who is going to feed us, who is going to ensure our food supply. 100 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:21,240 And the answer is clear: the big businesses of the biotechnological industry, of agribusiness, 101 00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:27,070 the supermarkets, companies such as Monsanto, Bayern, Syngenta, Dupown, Nestle, 102 00:09:27,070 --> 00:09:31,230 Procter & Gamble, Carrefour, Alcampo, El Corte Ingles, etc. And with these companies it is clear 103 00:09:31,230 --> 00:09:35,070 that basically what they are looking for with seeds and with food 104 00:09:35,070 --> 00:09:39,230 is to make money at the expense of the rights of farmers and of consumers. 105 00:09:39,230 --> 00:09:47,090 Those big farms will produce mostly not food, but raw material for the processing industry. 106 00:09:47,090 --> 00:09:53,190 Consumers can buy their food only in supermarkets. That will be processed food, is it healthy food? 107 00:09:53,190 --> 00:10:00,230 Big farms need to produce for low costs so they use a lot of fertilizers, chemicals. 108 00:10:00,230 --> 00:10:05,220 But, what is the quality of the food, what is the effect on the environment? 109 00:10:05,220 --> 00:10:10,080 If the treaty were to be signed, it would also put an end to the small circuits 110 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:17,000 which have been created between producers and consumers, as well as the support necessary for local food systems. 111 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:21,000 And by promoting monocultures and intensive agricultural production methods, 112 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,090 it would endanger attempts to reform European agricultural policy 113 00:10:24,090 --> 00:10:33,070 on the basis of a social, economic and environmental sustainable settlement. 114 00:10:33,070 --> 00:10:36,220 A model that consumes 70% of the fresh water on the planet 115 00:10:36,220 --> 00:10:41,100 and has led to the disappearance in the last century of 75% of the varieties of agricultural products 116 00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:44,170 that human beings have been growing for millennia. 117 00:10:44,170 --> 00:10:53,010 A system where a third of the arable land and 40% of cereal produced, enough for half the planet, 118 00:10:53,010 --> 00:10:58,150 is used for intensive livestock production. 119 00:10:58,150 --> 00:11:05,240 TTIP will undermine animal welfare standards. It will bring on an acceleration 120 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:12,110 of the intensification of animal farming in Europe and will lead to more animal suffering. 121 00:11:12,110 --> 00:11:17,150 Using hormonal treatment to increase productivity and washing chickens with chlorine 122 00:11:17,150 --> 00:11:21,150 could be examples of prohibitions that the European Union would have to suppress 123 00:11:21,150 --> 00:11:31,240 to harmonize standards with the United States, without taking into account the concerns of European citizens. 124 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:39,180 One of the tricks in the EU bag has been the so called precautionary principle. 125 00:11:39,180 --> 00:11:46,020 In 1997, the reason we were prohibited from the market was because we used... 126 00:11:46,020 --> 00:11:50,020 excuse me... hyperchlorinated water. 127 00:11:50,020 --> 00:11:55,040 Nutritious food will only be affordable for the rich people. 128 00:11:55,040 --> 00:12:02,050 So what can happen now with this treaty is that a farmer in Slovenia (I have just spoken to him) 129 00:12:02,050 --> 00:12:08,060 has to export his quality food for the rich Americans and the poor Slovenian people 130 00:12:08,060 --> 00:12:19,100 have to eat the processed food that we import from the United States. That is a crazy system that we are creating. 131 00:12:19,100 --> 00:12:25,030 We have witnessed for years the abduction of the previous model of agriculture and food consumption 132 00:12:25,030 --> 00:12:30,210 by a few companies that control from the beginning to the end all the agri-food industry. 133 00:12:30,210 --> 00:12:34,090 This has a very negative impact on the environment 134 00:12:34,090 --> 00:12:40,060 as it involves food products travelling thousands of kilometres from the field to the plate 135 00:12:40,060 --> 00:12:45,050 with the consequent dependence on petroleum and the production of gases with the greenhouse effect 136 00:12:45,050 --> 00:12:48,120 and with the development of a model of irrational and superfluous consumerism. 137 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:55,130 The chain of production, distribution and consumption that the TTIP aims to promote even more with the transatlantic trade 138 00:12:55,130 --> 00:13:03,210 is currently responsible for between 44% and 57% of all the CO2 emissions released into the environment. 139 00:13:03,210 --> 00:13:07,230 A model in which one hamburger is made from the meat of 10,000 cows 140 00:13:07,230 --> 00:13:11,190 and moves through 5 countries to get to the consumer. 141 00:13:11,190 --> 00:13:22,170 A model in which food has to travel an average of 5000 kilometres from the farm to the plate. 142 00:13:22,170 --> 00:13:28,100 We need a completely different paradigm of an ecological economy 143 00:13:28,100 --> 00:13:34,100 which would relocate the processes of production and consumption, cutting the great distances 144 00:13:34,100 --> 00:13:39,010 distances that are involved in transporting merchandise and natural resources. 145 00:13:39,010 --> 00:13:43,160 The option of agroecology would do away with the huge agribusinesses. 146 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:50,000 And relocating the economy and agriculture would save greatly on fossil fuel but, above all, 147 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:56,080 it would create jobs in local communities where the added value would stay 148 00:13:56,080 --> 00:14:01,170 and not go to the huge multinational companies with their production lines. 149 00:14:01,170 --> 00:14:07,190 There are alternatives. Today there exist many initiatives on a local level - cooperatives of ecological consumption, 150 00:14:07,190 --> 00:14:12,020 new ways of farming, urban gardens, ecological school cafeterias - 151 00:14:12,020 --> 00:14:16,160 which support another type of agriculture and food consumption. 152 00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:23,060 This is a real challenge for the future. Do the European citizens want to buy food from local farmers 153 00:14:23,060 --> 00:14:27,170 who produce locally, who sell locally, who take care of the environment 154 00:14:27,170 --> 00:14:35,050 or do they want to buy from very big enterprises with micro workers, monocultures and processed food? 155 00:14:35,050 --> 00:14:37,200 That is what we are taking about. 156 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:45,050 Let us pursue food sovereignty, the right of the people to decide about what is grown and what is eaten. 157 00:14:45,050 --> 00:14:52,140 In short, the pursuit of democracy, land and health. 158 00:14:52,140 --> 00:14:57,120 It's big business versus citizens in both sides of the Atlantic. 159 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:04,170 The concerns are really about the rights of citizens and the rights of the environment. 160 00:15:04,170 --> 00:15:10,180 And that is why it's important that the people from the US and from Europe 161 00:15:10,180 --> 00:15:12,180 struggle together to have better standards.