CETA: winning one step at a time

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CETA, the trade deal being negotiated between Canada and the EU, threatens democracy. The dangerous deal would mean the creation of special tribunals where corporations would be able to sue our governments for public money. Tackling a treaty of these enormous dimensions requires long-term work, but we haven’t shied away from it. First, back in the spring, we mobilised more than 350,000 Europeans in just five days. The European Commission listened and confirmed that the parliaments of EU countries will have the opportunity to ratify the controversial trade deal.

Then, in autumn, we launched a huge people-powered open-letter to persuade the Austrian Chancellor to veto the deal and the letter was published in Austria’s biggest newspaper, Der Standard. We also launched a petition to support the opposition of Wallonia to CETA, which collected almost 100.000 signatures in just a couple of days.

And even though the deal has been signed, we have managed to give a big blow to the system of special tribunal for corporations. Even better, CETA can still be stopped by a vote in the European Parliament or by any of the member states' national parliaments. We will keep you updated with our new actions to defeat CETA!