Austrian MPs say food security, sovereignty nonnegotiable

Homa Lezgee, Vienna

Austrian MPs protesting against the proposed free trade agreement between Europe and the US say food security and sovereignty is nonnegotiable. 

Members of Austria’s Green Party gathered outside the Agriculture Ministry on Thursday, holding placards saying “Stop TTIP”, a reference to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. 

“Food security and sovereignty should not be a topic for discussion because the rights of our consumers and farmers are much more important than opening the market,” MP Wolfgang Pirklhuber told Press TV. 

Negotiations between the US and the EU to create a free trade zone were launched in July 2013. An agreement was expected by the end of 2014 but talks have been prolonged both in Brussels and Washington amid a wealth of national objections and controversies. 

While proponents say a trade agreement embracing around half of the world’s gross domestic product will significantly boost the global economy, others argue the deal would undermine environmental and consumer safety, strengthening big companies at the cost of local farmers. 

Investor-state dispute settlement 

Pirklhuber who is also a spokesperson for the Austrian Parliament’s Chamber of Agriculture, Food Safety and Rural Development raised concern over the Investor-state dispute settlement known as ISDS, saying the topic should be dropped from the trade talks. The settlement allows an investor to bring a case directly against a host country without the intervention of his or her country of origin. Critics have described ISDS as a one-way street, allowing corporations to challenge government policies, while depriving governments and individuals of the right to hold corporations accountable. 

“Austria is GMO-free”

“The agricultural sector should be strengthened by original and quality products and not with commodities,” Pirklhuber said, expressing concern over the import of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) crops into the European Union. 

MP Thomas Waitz also from the Chamber of Agriculture said Austria is currently GMO-free but that Austrians are very worried about “getting GMO food on their plates without even knowing it.”

“You need to declare whether a food product is genetically modified or not. In the US there are no such declarations,” he said.

A local farmer himself, Waitz explained why the Austrian agricultural sector was concerned.  

“It’s basically about size,” he said. “In the US, there are farmers with more than 200 hectares of land and they are closing their doors because they’re too small for the market. In Austria, the medium size for a farmer’s land is around 20 hectares. We’re very small sized. We have family businesses and there’s no industrial farming.”

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has also expressed opposition to the deal, suggesting that Vienna could file a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice if the EU chose to sign the agreement. 

Faymann said Austria was looking for European partners to “protect the social and environmental standards in Europe.” 

“We have looked the other way for too long while corporations were creating tax loopholes and building a world of their own,” he said. 

Speaking earlier in January the EU commissioner for trade, Cecilia Malmström said the TTIP would help boost the Austrian economy, provide better public services and stronger regulation and secure Europe's place in a changing world.

For farmers like Thomas Waitz and agricultural and rural experts like Wolfgang Pirklhuber the fight against TTIP is a matter of survival. They argue no amount of regulatory and economic benefits is worth losing healthy and quality food products. 

HL/HMV

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