Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, has opened up another front on which to fight the bureaucrats of the European Union. He has revealed himself to be one of those helping WikiLeaks crowd-source €100,000 for the release of the secretive Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) documents.
Breitbart London first reported the efforts of Julian Assange’s secret-sharing website to source the full details of TTIP and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deals yesterday.
It is unclear whether a single text of the proposed deal currently under negotiation between the US and the European Union even exists. It is understood certain corporations have been granted privileged access to some of the closely guarded detail, but the general public has been barred.
According to the Daily Mail a finalised TTIP deal, dubbed an “economic NATO” by Hillary Clinton, will cover a third of world trade and be the biggest such agreement in modern history. The Independent reported that last year David Cameron has pledged to put “rocket boosters” under the deal, putting TTIP at the centre of his vision of a reformed competitive Europe.
Critics, including UKIP leader Nigel Farage, say it will increase the power of multinational companies at the same time as making it harder for national governments to regulate national markets for their citizens’ benefit.
WikiLeaks also announced the names of other “high profile activists and luminaries from Europe and the United States” backing the campaign with Yanis Varoufakis. Those so far named by WikiLeaks include:
- US journalist and Edward Snowden associate Glenn Greenwald;
- British fashion designer and environmental campaigner Dame Vivenne Westwood;
- Australian investigative journalist John Pilger;
- Belarusian philosopher and theorist Evgeny Morozov;
- Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg;
- filmmaker and Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam; and
- Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said: “The secrecy of the TTIP casts a shadow on the future of European democracy. Under this cover, special interests are running wild, much as we saw with the recent financial siege against the people of Greece. The TTIP affects the life of every European and draws Europe into long term conflict with Asia. The time for its secrecy to end is now.”
Greek Reporter reports the crowdfunding campaign has managed to raise around US$43,000 in just one day, although the exact amount the celebrity backers contributed has not been announced.