Wednesday February 4: As about 60 of us arrived outside the European Management Centre, there was a sense of excitement. We started sticking #noTTIP stickers all over ourselves, keen to greet the TTIP negotiators.
As the negotiators arrived, a banner from the Stop TTIP coalition was held in front of the doors. We shouted “TTIP, get out, we know what you’re all about.”

Negotiators ended up having to negotiate their way through a couple of Scotsmen in kilts wearing TTIP stickers in interesting places before they could get inside. The incident was made particularly amusing by the chill that morning.

As we protesters left, someone wrote #noTTIP in multicoloured chalk all over the cobblestones in front of the building. There was no doubt that we left our mark.

After leaving the protest at the official negotiations, we regrouped with the rest of our delegation. We were now just outside the European Commission building, where Global Justice Now and Friends of the Earth Europe had organised a demonstration featuring a very impressive 8-metre-high inflatable Trojan horse.

TTIP has been dubbed the “Trojan horse treaty.” Although seemingly about trade, it is mainly about furthering the agenda of privatising public services, dismantling hard-won labour and environmental protections and transferring undemocratic power to big business through the ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement).

The energy was great, with street theatre and about 300 people singing chants like “Cuts and losses, money for your bosses!”

I was particularly pleased when someone from the Stop TTIP coalition said to me “You should bring people over from Britain more often if it perks up the protests like this!”.

After the protest we headed to the EU Parliament. The Greens kindly hosted us for lunch, after which we met with Green MEPs Keith Taylor, Jean Lambert and Molly Scott Cato and Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans. Plaid also opposes TTIP.

We discussed whether TTIP is essentially setting up a global economic policy. This should be decided by the people, not unelected officials in secret.
The Greens’ opposition to TTIP is brilliant and adds strengths to everyone’s campaigning, but we were keen to remind them that we need their help convincing other MEPs.

If TTIP makes it to the EU Parliament, then we need more than just Green MEPs voting against it if we are going to defeat it. The pressure has to come from all sides if it’s going to work.

After this we met Labour MEPs from Britain and David Martin, who is the Social and Democrat group spokesperson on international trade.

Jude Kirton-Darling, Labour MEP for the north-east, began the meeting by speaking on behalf of Britain’s Labour MEPs and outlining their position on TTIP.

She said categorically that they want full exclusion of anything we understand to be a public service and the removal of ISDS from the deal, adding that attention needed to be given to how they were defining public services.

After Jude spoke, David addressed us and it quickly became obvious that the Social and Democrat position on TTIP is still unclear.

David began explaining the merits of a “good TTIP” which would protect public services, labour standards and good red tape and reform ISDS, but this idea was not keenly received.

A few members of our delegation starting questioning his comments, to which David’s response was to loudly slam his hand on the table and say “If you’re here to listen, then listen, if not then piss off!” The group was appalled.

Although David apologised for this comment, the damage had been done.

As we boarded our NoTTIP Express for the journey home, we were exhausted — yet there was no time for napping. Instead there was much planning to be done.

With some inspiring words from trip organiser Guy Taylor before we departed, it was clear that together we were stronger and that together we will defeat TTIP.

I want to say a huge thank you to Global Justice Now for orchestrating this fantastic trip, and to all the other groups involved: War on Want, 38 Degrees, Unison North West, Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory, Stop TTIP and many more.

Sakina Sheikh works at Keep Our NHS Public, volunteers at Global Justice Now and tweets at @SakinaZS