Bombshell in the European Parliament: the vote on the Lange Report should have been taking place in the plenum on Wednesday. However, the long-awaited vote did not happen. Just short of 200 amendments would have to be dealt with, among other relating to the controversial investor-state dispute settelements (ISDS). President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz and Bernd Lange (S&D), rapporteur and Chairman of the Committee on International Trade, referred the report back to the Committee.

This means that for the time being the resolutions of the European Parliament on TTIP as well as the agreement on private arbitration courts have failed. The Committee on International Trade (INTA) will now have to work through the amendments again. Particularly important in this connection are those amendments, which intend to delete - even more clearly defined than originally specified in the Trade Committee - all references to private ISDS arbitration courts from the report. The INTA Committee had after all, as recently reported by AK EUROPA, voted for the TTIP Resolution with a narrow majority.

Lange said at a press conference: “We as Social Democrats want to make it clear that we cannot agree to TTIP without the eight ILO Core Labour Standards as well as to several other points. These include: no compromises in case of food, environmental or other standards, no automatic liberalisation of services and no private arbitration courts”. Lange also pointed out how important transparency was to negotiators.

Trade Committee has to come clean

It is now up to the MEPs of the INTA Committee to get rid ISDS for good. The Parliamentarians belonging to the Left, the Greens, the EFDD as well as to the Social Democrats are categorically against these arbitration courts. Next week already, it should become clear whether the European People's Party and the liberal ALDE Group will join this majority, which would mean that ISDS will be no longer subject of the negotiations.

AK Campaign “NO 2 ISDS” a complete success

More than 43,000 signatures collected by the AK Campaign, together with other campaigns, have proven to be effective. 117 MEPs of all factions have already promised to clearly reject special rights for foreign investors and in particular any right to sue states in TTIP. Public pressure on MEPs and the European Parliament is on the increase; more and more people are opposed to ISDS. Just now, it is important to ask other MEPs to come out against ISDS. Support the initiative of AK EUROPA and say No to special rights for investors!

Further information:
No 2 ISDS