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UNI Europa’s position on basic principles for the TTIP negotiations is annexed.

For UNI Europa, an international trade agreement, such as TTIP, must foremost improve the living and working conditions of people substantially.

TTIP, linking the two biggest economies in the world, would by default provide the blueprint for future trade agreements; thus it is of importance beyond the agreement itself.

UNI Europa insists that TTIP, if concluded, provides a global model for a trade agreement that is fair, sustainable and social as well as ensures competitiveness through quality rather than through social dumping. The world needs a wage increase now – and TTIP should contribute, not least by facilitating collective bargaining in an ever more globalised world.

TTIP negotiations today are however characterised by a traditional free trade agenda of liberalisation – curbing standards and de-regulating trade.

While UNI Europa is in favour of creating closer economic cooperation with the USA, we regard the current negotiating process and negotiating mandate as neither transparent nor going in the direction we want.

UNI Europa therefore demands an immediate suspension of the TTIP negotiations. They can only continue with a transparent negotiating mandate that will have been reformulated with the full involvement of trade unions and civil society as well as parliaments. Such a mandate must define clear redlines.

For UNI Europa, the mandate and the TTIP agreement itself must in particular meet the following overall conditions to be acceptable:

1. TTIP must protect and indeed strengthen social and labour rights, including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. These rights should be explicitly guaranteed by the agreement and enforceable.
2. TTIP must be without prejudice to the EU’s social acquis, to European social provisions enshrined in the EU Treaties (TFEU, Titles IX and X). Service providers must be obliged to respect social and labour law as well as collective agreements applicable in the host country.
3. TTIP must aim at achieving a high degree of regulatory coherence without impinging on the democratically legitimised powers of public authorities to (re)regulate or legislate, e.g. addressing detrimental effects of liberalisation or protecting social, consumer and environmental rights.
4. TTIP must explicitly safeguard the public interest missions of services and it must not be a tool for further liberalisation in such fields (including the finance, gaming, ICT, media and postal sectors). In particular, any liberalisation obligation must be clearly specified (e.g. through the positive list approach).
5. TTIP must not include an investor-state-dispute-settlement mechanism (ISDS). Investor disputes must be dealt with by the ordinary court system. Beyond TTIP, UNI Europa is strongly of the view that any existing ISDS mechanisms by-passing the court system of the EU and member states must be abolished; this applies in particular to ISDSs between individual EU member states. ISDS mechanisms have become quasi-kangaroo courts biased against the public interest.
6. The EU must fully involve trade unions and civil society in the TTIP negotiations. The process must be transparent. Trade union opinions must be fully taken into account in the “Sustainability and Employment Impact Assessment”.

UNI Europa is moreover in favour of using the TTIP agreement for promoting best practices in terms of social and labour rights on both sides of the Atlantic. A particular flagship initiative would be to use the TTIP agreement to extend coverage of European style workers involvement in transnational companies to all US/EU operations. Let us start with creating trans-atlantic works councils.