The Free Trade Agreement with the USA (TTIP)  After the public pressure of the last months, the Commission has relented at least partly on the highly dangerous Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. There will be a three month open consultation starting in March on the basis of a preliminary draft of the…

Bananas are only one of countless examples for the wrongfullness incorporated in our trading system. This video is made to illustrate how much – or better – how little the planters are making off of one convetionally traded banana and who makes the profit instead if them. It is a…

Today, I voted for a remarkable resolution of the European Parliament. Adopted by a large majority, the resolution strongly defends free movement in the EU and condemns politicians pandering to populist whims by talking of “benefit tourism” and calling for restrictions against the free movement. The Parliament warns that it…

Garment workers in Cambodia last week started working again after two weeks of strike. Unfortunately they did not quit their strike because their demands were accepted, but because their protest were struck down so brutally, that five protesting workers were killed and many injured. The garment workers on strike have…

Some days ago I received an email that really got me and made me very angry. Someone from my constituency told me about the experience of his Syrian relative at the Greek-Turkish border who tried to reach the shores of Greece on a rubber boat. “A military vessel stopped next…