EU Free-Trade Agreement with Colombia has to be Suspended
„DIE LINKE still demands suspending the EU-Colombia Trade Agreement, which became effective this summer through support of the German government. Thus, the government shares responsibility for the poverty in Colombia, having now driven tens of thousands out on the streets,“ says Heike Hänsel, spokesperson for development policy of the parliamentary faction of DIE LINKE, on occasion of the riots in Bogotá during which one person was killed and 150 injured. The protestors in the national agricultural strike in Colombia call for a fundamentally different economic policy and an end to the EU Free-Trade Agreement. Hänsel further:
„A broad public mobilistation of 30.000 farmers, truck drivers, miners, workers, teachers, doctors, and social organisations, taking to the streets since twelve days despite police repressions to protest against the neoliberal economic policy, is a clear sign: supply bottlenecks, rising prices for food, and too low prices for agricultural products due to cheap imports deprive many Colombians of their means of existence. One reason for that are essentially the free trade agreements of the EU with Colombia.“