Members and representatives of diverse collectives and organizations from Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean, who are meeting in Brussels have sent an open letter to all governments attending the second EU-CELAC summit.
The CSOs organized and participated in the Days of Mobilization for Peoples Sovereignty against TNC Corporate power and the Architecture of Impunity established through Free Trade and Investment Treaties held during the second EU-CELAC summit. WIDE+ is one of the co-convenors to the Days of Mobilization.
The letter expresses our strong objection and rejection of the neoliberal and austerity policies that are being applied in the EU countries.
We demand substantive changes to the resource extraction policies in Latin America and the Caribbean that have been generalized all over, from Mexico to Argentina and from Brazil to Bolivia, generating dispossession and land expropriation, massive displacement of communities and environmental damages.
We demand the governments to immediately suspend indefinitely the negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) of the UE with the United States, the Trade in Service Agreement (TiSA) which involves the EU and several States from Latin America, as well as the Transpacific Partnership (TPP). We call on the governments of the MERCOSUR countries not to reinitiate the negotiations for an FTA with the UE. We reiterate our call against the ratification of the EU FTAs with Colombia, Peru, Central America, currently under discussion in Parliament in several European countries.
Instead of negotiating more free trade deals, we call for for the establishment of an international legally binding instrument on business and human rights, as mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2014 (decision A/HRC/26/L.22/Rev.1) in order to force transnational corporations to respect human rights wherever they operate.
The second EU-CELAC summit is developing under the theme of “Shaping our common future: working for a prosperous cohesive and sustainable societies for our citizens“. However, by insisting in focusing that relationship on the multiplication and establishment of Free Trade Agreements –cloaked as ‘partnership agreements’– these objectives will only get derailed and diluted and our societies will be driven to new and ever deeper crises.
To read the letter in full in English and Spanish: ESP-ENG – CARTA ABIERTA A LOS GOBIERNOS DE UE
1 comment