FairEconomyAlliance

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada – a perspective of European SMEs

2016-07-30

July 2016. CETA has just made the headlines because EU Member State governments succumbed to public pressure and decided that national parliaments need to have a say on it rather than just EU institutions. What’s at stake in a ratification process is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. On balance, given

How satisfied are SMEs with current free trade policy?

2016-07-18

10 March 2016 / 18 July 2016. The Prognos research institute was commissioned by BVMW (the German Association for SMEs) and the Schöpflin Stiftung to carry out a survey on TTIP. As part of this project, Prognos surveyed 800 small and medium-sized BVMW member companies. The results are clear: the

TTIP Sustainability Impact Assessment: Our contribution to improving the analysis on SMEs

2016-06-10

10 June 2016. Is trade good for people and the environment? Do international trade agreements comply with sustainability? Trade Sustainability Impact Assessments (TSIAs) are supposed to provide the answers. The latest (interim) TSIA has been prepared for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which is currently being negotiated between

TTIP could be a one-way street for European Business

2016-04-11

There are fundamental differences between the European and US conformity assessment and product approval systems. Consequently, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) could result in trade advantages biased towards American companies. Furthermore, it is highly likely that TTIP will lead to a lowering of Europe’s current environmental and safety

Position Paper by ECOS: Mutual recognition of standards in TTIP

2016-03-01

Belgium ECOS defends the environmental interests in the European Standardisation System, especially through contributing with legal and technical expertise, to the evaluation of standardisation needs and the standards’ development or revision process. ECOS particularly focuses on standards developed to support EU environmental legislation and policies. ECOS is the only environmental

Five more questions… to US Trade Representative (USTR) and the European Commission

2015-09-09

Belgium Here are some things we know already, thanks largely to the research commissioned by European Commission: We know that: SMEs really matter to the European economy, and society Europe’s 20 Million+ SMEs produce nearly 55% of the added value of Europe’s GDP, over 25% of its GDP and are

EU Commission report one-sided, incomplete and misleading

2015-06-01

Belgium Ecopreneur.eu, the European umbrella organization of national green economy associations, is criticizing the latest EU Commission report on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as incomplete and misleading. In a comment published on Monday, the organization accuses the Commission of drawing overly

Five questions SME businesses need to ask themselves about TTIP

2015-03-06

February 2015. Promoters of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) claim it’s good for all business, but is this really true? The European Commission (EC) and the USA say it will be of particular benefit to SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), not just multinationals. But is this really true?