A QUARTER of a million people marched through Berlin on Saturday in protest at the anti-democratic TTIP trade pact.

The demonstration, organised by the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) drew support from left parties, environmentalists and charities.

Colourful floats included a Trojan horse representing the treaty and another showing Chancellor Angela Merkel lighting the fuse of a bomb sitting on a building labelled “democracy.”

Their objection to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is that it will undermine negotiated pay and conditions and lower safety standards for food and drugs.

It will also allow companies to dictate policy to elected governments by using its investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms.

Left party Die Linke parliamentary leader Dieter Bartsch condemned the secrecy in which the deal is being negotiated. “We definitely need to know what is supposed to be being decided,” he said.

German Friends of Nature president Michael Mueller said: “We are here because we do not want to leave the future to markets but, on the contrary, to save democracy.”

In a letter to several newspapers, German Economic Affairs Minister and Social Democratic Party chairman Sigmar Gabriel claimed opposition to TTIP was no more than “scaremongering.”

He wrote: “We have the chance to set new and good standards for growing global trade, with ambitious standards for the environment and consumers, and with fair conditions for investment and workers. This must be our aim.”

Nonetheless, over three million people, including half a million Britons, have signed a petition opposing TTIP.