It has been few weeks since the Syriza party won elections and formed the government in Greece. They’ve not wasted any time to confirm their decision on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

As reported by this story in CommonDreams, the party has said that it will ‘never ratify’ the deal. This will be their ‘gift to all European people’. Georgios Katrougkalos, the new deputy minister for administrative reforms, has confirmed that the party stands by the anti-TTIP stance it had even before it came to power.

Syriza’s coalition partner seems to share the party’s views on TTIP. Greece can veto the deal, hence threatening to block it.

This is great news for organisations and individuals across Europe who have been protesting against the TTIP deal. The deal is currently in its eight round of negotiations in Brussels.

Most critics of the deal, including the Syriza party are opposed to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism proposed in the deal. ISDS will allow corporations to sue the government for any alleged loss caused by the government’s action. If they are sued, the compensation to be paid by the governments to the companies will come from the tax payers money. The ISDS will supersede national laws and force the government to act in the interest of the corporations alone.

Deals like TTIP are extensions of the neo-liberal ideology. An ideology that dominates our world today. This was elaborated in One Party Planet, a pamphlet published by the /The Rules in 2014.

This one party serves the ideology of neoliberalism, which places success of the profit driven corporations above the welfare of its people. The dominance of this ideology has brought us to a point where 1% of the world has become wealthier than the rest of 99% combined.

Rise of parties like Syriza, who seem to tread a different path from neoliberal creed, is a sign of hope. Will succeed in establishing a much needed alternative economic model? We’ll have to wait for sometime to get an answer to that question.