It used to be that ‘consumers’ - in effect all of us - were constructed as passive receivers of purported benefits of trade agreements, irrespective of the downsides of these agreements. But now ‘trade’ deals like the US/EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are being commonly described as ‘anti-consumer’ as their serious negative effects are recognised. Nonetheless UK consumer organisation Which? is still supporting this agreement. Why?
As people find out about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP, the US/EU ‘free trade agreement’, they tend to reject it, and many organisations are opposed to it. However, two crucial civil society elements, which many people would expect to clearly oppose TTIP, are at best fence-sitting and at worst in effect supporting TTIP. These two civil society forces, presently undermining the huge efforts across the EU and the US to kill this agreement, are consumer organisations and unions.
Despite attempts to blur their positions, cloaking them in ‘concerns’ and ‘red lines’, the fact remains that their ultimate support for TTIP can be and is being used by officialdom and political leaders to ‘demonstrate’ and exaggerate support for TTIP.
