One of the best attended plenary meetings in Solikon was the round table on Trade. It was jointly organised by RIPESS and Solikon.
With the moderation of Monica Di Sisto (Fairwatch), Brid Brennan of TNI (Trans National Institute) made an excellent presentation about the importance of the process to achieve a Human Rights binding Treaty on Transnational Corporations. Florent Marcellesi (MEP with the Greens) presented the importance of the collective efforts in fighting the TTIP / TISA treaties and ISDS mechanism, while Christian Felber (Economy of the Common Good) outlined the need for an alternative “sovereign democracy” process, that would lead to a “framework mandate” for the negotiations of international agreements or economic conventions.
Finally Rudi Dalvai (WFTO – World Fair Trade Organisation) said that a stronger alliance between Fair Trade and other market economy alternative practices is needed now more than ever. It was quite clear that solidarity economies, including fair trade, are the only framework that can provide a rightsbased alternative to the current neoliberal dominated economy.
The issue for RIPESS Europe is how to best involve its members in recognising these global policy issues as part of their agendas and what forms of practical actions and alliances can be facilitated.
