TTIP: Demonstration in Hannover against FTA with US – SPIEGEL ONLINE

In Hannover began a mass demonstration against the planned FTA TTIP. The police counted to kick off more than 25,000 participants, the organization Alliance expected to rally a total of about 50,000 demonstrators.

participants wore T-shirts with the call “Stop TTIP” and posters with the slogan “Give TTIP no chance”. Among the protests an alliance of over 20 organizations called. The event is aimed not only against the TTIP agreement between the European Union and the United States, but also against the already finished negotiating free trade agreements between the EU and Canada, Ceta.

The demonstration finds a day instead of before the visit of US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover. Both promoted before their meeting on the outskirts of Hannover Messe for TTIP.

The agreement offers the opportunity to define global standards, Merkel said in her weekly video message. On the standards to which the EU and the US agreed to the rest of the world will orient. Let there be for other parts of the world “very, very hard, durable linger behind”.

The CDU leader dismissed allegations that negotiations between the EU and the US are secret: “I believe that we have done everything possible to improve the transparency in the negotiations for TTIP.”

“One of the best ways to promote growth and create jobs, is the transatlantic trade and investment partnership,” Obama told the “Bild” newspaper. At a meeting with young people in London, the US president said, referring to TTIP: “Such agreements are difficult Every country must give up some..”

The EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström expressed surprise before the protests in Hannover. “Frankly, I find it a little strange that the greatest resistance to the TTIP agreement comes just from Germany, an economically successful state,” said the liberal Swedish politician. “It’s not easy to understand the anxiety in Germany.” Malmström leads on the side of the Europeans the transatlantic negotiations.

It sets hopes on the Hannover-visit of the US president. “I hope that Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain the German public why this agreement is so important and there is no reason to fear”

The Green Party leader Anton Hofreiter expressed cautious. “I expect that at the meeting between Merkel and Obama is not much come around. We are confident that TTIP will not come about in its present form.”

TTIP – finally understood