International

The SP is completely opposed to the trade treaty with Japan presented today by the European Commission. SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur sees it as ‘an undermining of democracy from here to Tokyo’, and as a threat to workers’ rights, regulations designed to protect the climate and the environment, and democratic and transparent decision-making.

Mineur is concerned primarily about the fact that EU regulations must in future be presented to the Japanese government for approval. “The European Commission calls that regulatory cooperation,” she says, “but what it comes down to is simply that we will no longer be able even to determine our own policies. If any of our agricultural policies or our fishery policies have an effect on our trade with Japan, Japan can chuck them out. When did the Netherlands agree to this? Furthermore, this is yet another treaty that presents a threat to a lot of things for which generations of people in the Netherlands have fought: trade union rights, environmental protection and measures to combat climate change. That’s unacceptable.”

Mineur draw attention in addition to the absence of any public debate on the treaty, to the fact that the European Parliament was allowed to see only the EU’s input to the negotiations and was sworn to secrecy, and that the general public and social organisations were left entirely in the dark. Once more, the desires of corporate business were all that counted.