Why Ireland Must Block CETA

Doubtless you’ll have heard the term CETA in the past 24 hours, given the growing backlash against Irish Government plans to push through the legislation without public consultation or adequate public education of the consequences.

Today, we outline what CETA is, the consequences for Ireland’s citizens and ecology, and why we must avoid to such agreements that sign away our rights while handing more power to corporations.

What is CETA?

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a trade agreement between the EU and Canada, which seeks to remove things like customs duties, while making it easier for European businesses to export their products to Canada.

This is very similar to the much-talked-about, and much maligned, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which has sought to hand more power to corporations to boost trade between the US and Europe.

CETA: Corporations over Citizens

While governments will sell the idea that CETA will allow increased trade, and therefore increase prosperity, they rarely discuss the wider implications of this trade agreement.

CETA includes legislation to allow corporations to sue nations, enabling businesses to take governments and taxpayers to court if they introduce any laws which may limit that corporation’s ability to profit.

While this may seem like an extreme feature of the small print that is unlikely to happen, we have already seen similar legislation resulting in the tobacco giant Philip Morris attempting to sue the Australian government.

The tobacco corporation believed that new laws to introduce mandatory plain packaging and health warnings on cigarettes limited the potential of their sales, despite the obvious medical harm of their products. Philip Morris have also used similar legislative loopholes to take the governments of Uruguay and Togo to court – in effect taking the same taxpayers whose health they are damaging to court for wanting to avoid the negative health implications of Philip Morris’ products.

We aren’t alone in fearing the wide-ranging implications of CETA – the intentions and validity of CETA have been debated by a number of European nations, including Belgium and Germany – where a constitutional complaint was made by more than 125,000 people.

Trading Ecology for Profit

While the European Commission may claim “Trade policies can support efforts of countries to address climate change, just as polities for addressing climate change can influence trade among countries,” this wildly overlooks the inherent role that capitalism has played in worsening the Climate Crisis.

The CETA agreement puts Ireland, and other EU nations, in the position where any corporation could tax governments (and, in effect, taxpayers) to court over anything that they see as being a blocker to maintaining or increasing their profits.

An independent report by FoodWatch found that “CETA presents significant shortcomings and risks for the environment, climate and health” while also highlighting that the “CETA treaty does not prioritise concerns relating to the protection of the environment and health”.

This viewpoint is supported by EcoLogic, who undertook an independent analysis of the ramifications of CETA in collaboration with Greenpeace. Their report concluded: “Regulatory cooperation has a focus on trade liberalisation and consistency of rules across borders; it has no focus on enhancing environmental protection.”

“This makes it unlikely that regulatory cooperation will become a driver for ambitious environmental policies.”

With just seven years to tackle the Climate Crisis, we cannot allow any room for ambiguity when it comes to taking climate action, and nor can we allow those organisations who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo – and current emission level – to set the standards by which we attempt to avert cataclysm.

This is made even more imperative given the lack of concrete targets set out in the Irish Climate Bill, which has caused Climate Case Ireland to launch a petition to #FixTheBill, which already has over 2,000 signatures.

The Irish government plan to ratify the highly controversial and troubling CETA deal on Tuesday 15th December. We urge any concerned reader to contact their TD urgently to voice their opposition to this major issue, and the potential implications which could have a lasting effect on Ireland’s ability to address the Climate Crisis.