DThe Greens are hoping to discuss their position on free trade. While business associations criticized the Greens for not ratifying the Sita agreement in negotiations with Canada, the non-governmental organization Foodwatch criticized the fact that the party now approves provisional implementation of parts of the agreement .

Foodwatch said, “The Greens secretly want to say goodbye to their previous Sita.” “Party leadership supports a trade deal that abolishes parliamentary control and completely curbs corporate interests.” Foodwatch demands that the Greens’ election manifesto’s passage on Ceta be changed to the party congress in mid-June. Party members can amend by 30 April.

The draft election manifesto states: “We have a lot of criticism of the Sita agreement. Therefore we do not want to ratify the Sita agreement in its current version, but leave it with the application of the parts currently in force. “In 2015 and 2016 the Greens supported protests against Sita and TTIP, unsuccessful compromises with the US, and protested the initial application.

After the election of Donald Trump as US President, some Greens began to reconsider, and some Rilo regrets his dogmatic disapproval. The green demand for Sita and TTIP’s renaissance turned out to be unrealistic.

Sita entered into force in autumn 2017, but those parts, which fall under the sole responsibility of the European Union, will be implemented at the moment: customs will no longer apply to many products, standards and approval procedures will be aligned. The security of the investment is, among other things, excluded from the application. The arbitration tribunals, which decide on the claims of the investors, were a major point of contention in the Sita controversy.