Spaniards hold demos against EU-US free trade deal
Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Spain’s capital to protest against a planned transatlantic free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States, Press TV reports.
Some 2,000 protesters participated in a demonstration in Madrid on Saturday, to voice anger at the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The TTIP aims to liberalize deals and ease the flow of goods and services between the US and the EU as well as to create the world’s largest trade zone accounting for more than 60 percent of global production.
Critics of the trade deal fear the pact will hand too much power to big multinational corporations at the expense of consumers and workers.
“Inequality will only be exacerbated thanks to the international trade deals as well as national and global public policy, which only serves the interest of very privileged minority elites and don’t answer to the majority,” Pablo Martinez, the spokesman for the Spanish Alliance Against Poverty, told Press TV.
The TTIP has been also widely criticized for its expected negative impacts on the environment.
“We are putting the planet’s health and our own at risk as food safety would be deregulated,” said Miguel Angel Soto, the spokesman for the Greenpeace Spain.
Similar demonstrations were also held in several other cities across Spain.
The EU and the US have been negotiating since 2013 on the TTIP, hoping to deliver over USD 100 billion of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic.
In April, about 50,000 Spaniards participated in an anti-TTIP protest in Spain's capital.
On October 10, over 100,000 demonstrators rallied against the deal in Germany’s capital, Berlin, turning the protest into the largest of its kind in Europe.
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