On TTIP and the NHS, they are trying to bamboozle us

[Northerner]

The NHS has become a key battleground for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the controversial treaty currently being negotiated in secret between the European Commission and the US government.

Now that more and more people are becoming aware of the threat that TTIP poses to public services, the European Commission and its friends have found a new and inventive way of trying to bamboozle people into accepting it.

On the eve of the sixth round of talks, which begin in Brussels this week, a ‘private’ letter from the EU’s chief negotiator, Ignacio Garcia Bercero, to John Healey MP was conveniently leaked to the Guardian and Financial Times. The letter attempts to downplay the fact that public health services are included in TTIP, suggesting that there is no need to fear for the NHS as a result.

The media went further, suggesting that there was to be a ‘carve out’ for the NHS, or that US companies would not be allowed to run public health services in the future. Both claims are entirely false.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/john-hilary/on-ttip-and-nhs-they-are-trying-to-bamboozle-us

 

[ypauly]

As you say Alan all shameless lies. Besides the NHS is already subject to private EU companies, people arguing over whether American ones can join in seems a little daft to me.


I have always described the EU as a capitalist trade experiment and couldn't understand so called socialists desire to expand it. You only have to look at the lobbyists in Brussels to see that it will be big business that wins not the public. Yet strangely I would like a more federal Europe with a real European government and everybody playing by the same rules such as a European minimum wage, and European housing policy for ALL, a free EU health service and a standardized benefits system.


This governence by trade treaties just is not working.