TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) are free-trade agreements about to be signed between the European Union and the USA, and the EU and Canada, respectively. The idea behind the agreements is the removal of trade and non-trade barriers, which will have a grave impact on human and workers’ rights, public services and the environment. By ratifying TTIP and CETA, nation states will be in an even more disadvantaged position in relation to big business, and especially multinational corporations.

Investors will be able to sue nation states through private, biased and non-transparent arbitration (ISDS – Investor-state dispute settlement clause) in case they perceived any decision by a state to be damaging to their profits. Although the agreements would have a huge impact on society as a whole, negotiations are kept behind closed doors, and even the elected representatives of national and EU parliaments do not have an unrestricted access to them. TTIP and CETA present the latest blow to the remnants of the welfare state, and a continuation of neoliberal economic policies with the ultimate goal of diminishing the influence of already deteriorating democratic institutions.
In the panels we examine the impact of TTIP and CETA agreements in case they are signed, and explore the possible forms of fighting it on local, but also on the European level.
Panels are organised by the Center for Democratization in cooperation with the Center for Peace Studies, GONG and Friends of the Earth Croatia, members of the Stop TTIP Croatia platform.