Hungary, Budapest – The Hungarian Parliament voted a motion to counter the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP ), also called Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), but also the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).
Proposed by the Green MP Schiffer, from the LMP (Politics Can Be Different) party, this motion aims to push the government to, first of all, draw some red lines that could not be crossed, especially in matters such as environmental and sanitary standards, social and democratic regulations, consumer’s rights, or even judiciary. The second point aimed by this motion is to make the government change the ratification mode of these treaties.
Since the Treaty of Lisbon of 2007, such treaties are negotiated by the European Commission only, ratified by the European Union, as long as they do not include “non-commercial” legal provisions. With this motion, the Hungarian MPs want to classify such commercial treaties as “mixed agreement”, considering this treaty as far more than a simple commercial treaty. The European Commission would then have to make sign the document by each member state before bringing the treaty into force.
The motion had been accepted by 178 yes, 5 abstention and 2 no (the Hungarian Parliament has 199 seats).
