European Parliament TTIP vote postponed ‘because of huge public pressure’
eureporter.co
eureporter.co
Treaties shouldn't be negotiated in private and withheld from scrutiny. Not anywhere claiming to be democratic.
ISDS is just wrong. TTIP opens the way for companies to use a supranational, binding court of arbitration to sue any country that impacts future profits. If a country, for instance, changed environmental protections, worker rights, food safety standards, whatever, they can be sued for large sums.
It's anti democratic and it hands sovereignty over to business interests. It's being pushed by bureaucrats and lobbyists who have tried their damnedest to keep it out of the light. To the extent that even MEPs have had to sign an NDA before being allowed to set eyes on a draft (we know this because one or two broke the NDAs)
TTIP may extend these rights, and it certainly should be negotiated in such a secretive way, but the ISDS provisions are nothing particularly new. ISDS exist because national courts are not always unbiased, and may unduly favour the host nation.
As opposed to favouring ... what, exactly?
Yes, I recently learned that, too. I find it shocking.
I can understand it somewhat when dealing with underdeveloped and corrupt countries, but even then I'm not sure it would be the best way. But most countries involved in this treaty have a well-functioning and reasonably fair court system. A secretive arbitration system is no improvement.
Yes, and it has created its share of problems already. Which is exactly why a lot of people are concerned; i.e. because it is known to not just be a hypothetical issue.
Extending their reach, as you may gather, is not something I'm in favour of.
I don't really care why ISDS exist, it's a dilution of democracy and national sovereignty.
Just because it isn't new doesn't mean we should shrug and accept it.
But why?
Furthermore, as mentioned by other commentators, ISDS is already a part of many treaties. However one fundamental flaw - which is a part of many of the previous treaties involving ISDS - was that the conditions required for allowing corporations to sue governments were very loosely defined: The treaties usually allow corporations to sue governments if any kind of "indirect expropriation" occurs - From a paper on CETA: "Indirect expropriation can only occur when the investor is substantially deprived of the fundamental attributes of property such as the right to use, enjoy and dispose of its investment; " (1)
This clause allows corporations to sue against a very broad range of policy measures. The TTIP supposedly contains a more detailed outline under what circumstances corporations can sue (2):
• We have reaffirmed the right to regulate. In CETA we have made clear in the preamble of the agreement that the EU and Canada preserve their right to regulate and to achieve legitimate policy objectives, such as public health, safety, environment, public morals and the promotion and protection of cultural diversity.
• We have defined key concepts like “fair and equitable treatment” and “indirect expropriation”, in order to prevent abuse. For the first time, CETA provides a definition of these terms. "Fair and equitable treatment" is defined through a clear, closed text which defines precisely the content of the standard without leaving unwelcome discretion to arbitrators. Moreover, detailed language has been agreed upon to clarify what constitutes indirect expropriation, particularly excluding claims against legitimate public policy measures.
(1) http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/november/tradoc_1...
(2) http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/may/tradoc_153408...
I predict, that it will go like with the Mexico treaty. I lately saw a documentary about it and they said, that some people in Mexico have more money -- but the poor people have less, since many farmers are in disadvantage because of the treaty. Also many workers have disadvantages, because worker prices have dropped on both sides of the border.
But all commentators that is against the agreement have been about the other sections in the agreement, not the removal of tariffs. The agreement could be cut by 90%, and majority of the best-case GDP growth would still happen. Add with the skulduggery and non-democratic process, it is easy to view this as a Trojan horse which 10% good and 90% maliciousness added in. If the political process forces people to a binary decision, abolish it and then create a new agreement which only include the stuff about tariffs.
I wouldn't like that, but playing the devil's inquirer, why shouldn't business interests hold sovereignty? And what's to stop them?
Society is allegedly organised by the people, for the people. Businesses are allowed to exist and governed by laws set up with the benefit of the society in mind. They are limited by inconvenient things like safety standards, pollution restrictions etc etc.
The pure profit motive with which businesses operate (and with which some will advocate they are required by law and shareholders to operate) are necessarily on conflict with these as they add cost. If these protections are removed then we all lose out, including businesses, as they have to operate in a society wracked with illness from pollution, or from accidents (in my trivial example).
So it's not in anyone's interest to let business set all the rules. Not even in the interests of business.
>> And what's to stop them?
Now that is a much more interesting question...
And Citizens United ruling says corporations are people, so what's the problem here? ;)
In the United States.
One reason is that humans need affordable and clean water to drink. ISDS cases have caused water quality and price regulations to be disregarded in Germany and Argentina.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-lega...
Additional edit: There is a huge amount of evidence that can be seen already about how businesses wreak havoc on political systems. The United States is a perfect example over and over again. Whether is it government intervention in the forming of labor unions, military intervention around the world and in south america (especially the early 20th century), corporate sponsorship of congressional members, etc - we can already see that this is a thick cloud over our representative government. Noam Chomsky has written extensively about this. Our senators and representatives are continually caught up in this via lobbying and etc. When you let businesses into the process as much as we have you will have problems - but if you allow them further access beyong what they currently have then that would be absolute insanity.
TPA (Fast Track) did pass, contrary to headlines.
TAA did not pass, but will be re-voted next Tuesday.
I can't understand how anyone brought up in a democratic country would ask that question.
My thoughts are more intuitive than informed and studied. In general it's most likely a bad outcome to give sovereignty over me to a corporation whose explicit goal is to take from me as much as I can sustain. Corporations have demonstrated that they will rape the commons, given the chance.
More specifically I fall back on the US Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ... etc etc
By this statement, governments are created for the benefit of all. Corporations are created for the benefit of the corporation, and as they get hyper-large they don't even serve the needs of their own employees; they become self-aware, and their survival and growth becomes their reason for existence.
Governments can be concerned with my interests. It's impossible for corporations to play that role.
I think this is getting a bit out of hand. Corporations aren't alive or self-aware, in the end humans make all the decisions, and most of the time for the benefit of those same humans.
> Governments can be concerned with my interests. It's impossible for corporations to play that role.
Corporations are led by CEOs (and other officers of the company) and by the board, while government is led by the president (or equivalent from other countries) and the legislative (Congress in the US, Parliament in others). How much does POTUS or the average Congressman care about your interests? They only care as far as it wins them the next election, but that's not much different from a corporation: a corporation might care about your interests as long as you're a paying customer. Government ceases to care about you when you stop voting, companies cease to care when you stop buying.
It was a metaphor.
If the mom and pop in a mom-pop business decided to retire and disband the business, that can happen. Or if mom and/or pops suddenly died, the business has an excellent chance of dying with them.
I seriously doubt the CEO and board of General Electric could decide to disband General Electric. The corporation is effectively protected by its size and its existence. It may as well be self-aware, because its continuation trancends and outlives its human maintainers.
If the CEO suddenly died, there would be no thought of giving up and disbanding. The corporation's rules would immediately come into play, and a temporary CEO would be on duty immediately, followd by a search.
That said, the problem with ISDS in several treaties in the past 20 years is how it has been employed [e.g. Cigarette companies using in attempts to force labeling changes and/or threatening small countries with ISDS cases. ]
It really just needs a "If the company who pursues the suit loses, they pay Costs+$X" provision to strongly discourage ISDS suits that are frivolous and to have a public health/safety exception.
An exception in direction "health/safety" will not help either, since bad countries will label everything "health/safety" further on and the other way around there are still enough possibilities for frivolous movements of corporations.
Secret courts will never be the solution!
They aren't secret and the fact you'd make that claim pretty much completely invalidates your opinion.
https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-s...
> Full transparency in cases. Governments must make all pleadings, briefs, transcripts, decisions, and awards in ISDS cases publicly available, as well as open ISDS hearings to the public. One key objective of these provisions is to allow governments that are party to the agreement, as well as the public at large, to carefully monitor pending proceedings and more effectively make decisions about whether to intervene.
> Public participation in cases. Tribunals have the clear authority to accept amicus curiae submissions. In U.S. cases, amicus briefs have been submitted by a variety of NGOs, including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Center for International Environmental Law. (Documents in all investor-State cases filed against the United States are available on the State Department website.)
But of course it invalidates my argument, when I don't believe the "official" statements. I see it in my country: The official statements are always true and everybody else a liar. It is written in the Prawda.
From http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-lega...
"Brazil has never signed up to this system – it has not entered into a single treaty with these investor-state dispute provisions – and yet it has had no trouble attracting foreign investment."
"secret courts"
Secret Courts? Seriously! We have (mostly) open courts today because we have learned something in the past few thousand years. Let's not go back to the dark ages. This agreement needs to fail!
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/eu-dropped-plan...
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-co...
Seems to me they are just waiting until the public forgets about it.
Incomprehensibility isn't a desirable feature of regulation.
[1] I recommend this explanation by (Brown University prof. econ.) Mark Blyth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=674
I realize the horrible situation the Greek people are in, but you cannot just say, that a bit more inflation and a bit less austerity would have solved the thing. Greece had neither an economy that exported anything nor a working administration. Greece could have gotten plenty of EU investment money, they just did not file the papers. How can you expect money invested there to not mysteriously get lost on the way?
I think the idea to couple payment tranches with accomplished reforms was good, but some of the measurements clearly went to far. The core problem is, that we wanted to have them in the EU badly when everything was great, so we were okay with them cheating on the requirements.
I would argue that East-Germany had more substance 1990 than Greece has today. There was a massive investment program and still today East-Germany is not at the level West-Germany is. West-German states are heavily criticizing the systems to support the east. The average German simply does not want to send money to lazy Berliners (which is a German state receiving money from the others and builds airports with it, you might have heard of).
Unfortunately we cannot do the same with Greece, because the required solidarity is just not there yet - and Germany is not really the problem here: There are countries in the EU with lower standards of living that would never accept this. So we kind of have to operate on the living patient here. Get some reforms, invest some money, repeat. Otherwise the emerging far-right parties will take over.
Hiding behind smaller countries is new, but I can understand the German public is running out of excuses to justify their egoism.
Thing is, all this could be solved tomorrow by introducing collective eurobonds (or similar debt-sharing facilities) and making the BCE a real central bank. But that would level the playing field a bit too much for German tastes.
> How can you expect money invested there to not mysteriously get lost on the way?
Their corrupt political class has been swept away. If you don't extend some credit to new recruits who had no responsibility whatsoever in the disaster, when will you ever do it?
> Unfortunately we cannot do the same with Greece, because the required solidarity is just not there yet
Where there is a will, there is a way. A certain fraulein said so herself a few days ago. If you want to do it, you do it. If you don't do it, it's because you don't want to, simple as.
> Otherwise the emerging far-right parties will take over.
Newsflash: the german chancellor (a law graduate) is a far-right dude. Jeroen Dijsselbloem (agricultural policy "expert") is well to the right of his Dutch Labour Party, and in fact it's costing them activists.
European economic policy is dominated by right-wing ideas right now. Are you saying we should expect even worse, coming from the North? It wouldn't be the first time.
So lets start with easier tasks and save money by creating a single European military or introduce single European welfare systems, which would lessen the pain, too. These tasks are already hard enough. If you lose the people on this we can forget about it all for a long time.
I think your intentions are good, but your arguments are weak and you are just raging. I would love to see a unified Europe with a unified standard of living, but you cannot simply introduce things. Think about the consequences.
> Their corrupt political class has been swept away.
And now we have a coalition of far-right and far-left wannabe rockstars. The whole administration is still the same, corrupt and to a large extend unable to do its job. I give them that they are trying to poker for their country, but I fear the point the others are fed up with this bullshit, simply ignore them and let them default. The media is more and more telling the story that a so called Grexit would not be that dangerous anymore.
> Newsflash: the german chancellor (a law graduate) is a far-right dude.
The German chancellor is a physics graduate and her party (CDU) moved to the left in the last years. There are effectively 3 social-democratic, center-left parties in Germany right now: The Greens, SPD and CDU. Other than thinking a bit more backwards than the other two, it is all about introducing welfare programs as presents for being elected.
That is why she has been ruling for so long. She effectively crushed the SPD with this strategy: They introduced hard reforms ten years ago and she moved to the left. No there is not enough room between the CDU and the Lefts for the SPD. She simply ignores the AFD to the right of her as they do their best to destroy themselves already and were never an "alternative" - as their name suggests - for most Germans.
It's unrealistic to think the whole of Europe will ever have the exact same economic standard as Germany. This doesn't happen even in the US, which have been a proper federal union for more than a century now. If we want a real union, we will have to harmonize things in both directions -- and yes, that means the Germans will have to endure in similar ways as they did when they annexed the DDR. The FED makes economic policy choices to suit the whole federation, not just California or New York.
If this does not suit the German people, then maybe we should just give up the federal project altogether.
> So lets start with easier tasks and save money by creating a single European military or introduce single European welfare systems
The military is already highly integrated through NATO, to the point that the UK for months relied on French capabilities for their naval aircraft carriers, while their own were being repaired or manufactured. If you mean integrating foreign policy, that's much harder than harmonizing a bunch of financial arrangements, because it's the sort of thing the man on the street will have an opinion about: ask a taxi driver what an eurobond is, and he'll just blank out. Same for welfare. Besides, you cannot integrate welfare without common money pools, because welfare is by definition subsidiary: the rich pays for the poor. So if you want an integrated welfare, you need integrated finances, and integrated finances require integrated debt, i.e. eurobonds.
Integrated finance and debt is the next big step for the monetary union, there is no way around it. Most people did not realize this had not been done when the Euro was introduced, and now we're seeing the problems that come from this approach. I like to think that the Maastricht "forefathers" actually expected this to happen and let it be, like Hari Seldon would have done, in the assumption that European elites would inevitably get around the inevitability of certain hard choices once faced with them. It's a more optimist view than thinking they were just idiots.
> Good luck getting the UK to do that.
The UK does not belong in a federal EU. They should be kept in a friendly economic zone, but they should be excluded from any decision-taking body, like it should happen for any country not adopting the Euro. Otherwise the fedealist project will forever remain a dream. This I've been saying for 20 years, btw. There is no point trying to keep them in -- England is the unofficial 51st State and will remain so for the foreseeable future. I say that as an European UK resident, so against my best interests, but it's the hard truth. If excluding England means losing the more "europeist" NI, Scotland and EIRE, so be it.
> And now we have a coalition of far-right and far-left wannabe rockstars.
Tony Blair really was a wannabe rockstar, and he ended up being the most skillful politician of his generation in the UK, and one of the most influential across the whole of Europe. So let's leave the weak ad-hominem to tabloids please. Besides, there is more economic policy intelligence in one of Varoufakis' fingernails than in you and me combined. You have to face the fact that these guys are actually good: they took a smalltime leftist operation and got them in government. They managed to coopt some of their worst enemies on the right and basically took them out of the game. They tried to build a coalition across countries with similar interests, and the failure there is just due to political weakness on the other side (Hollande is hapless, Renzi has no electoral mandate, and Spain is in the process of changing government), although there is some evidence that they might be coming around the idea of putting pressure on Merkel. If you don't help them now to establish a modern bureaucracy and statehood, you'll condemn Greece back to colony status, with periodic coup d'ètat and all that. Which would be very dangerous, considering the Russian neoimperialistic approach and eternal instability in the Balkans. But if you make them heroes to their people, making them appear as the saviours of national pride, they will have the political capital to make bolder choices in any area.
> The German chancellor is a physics graduate
Apologies, I got tripped up by UK exceptionalism: I referred to the chancellor in UK terms, i.e. the minister of Finance, Schauble, who is in fact a law graduate and much to the right of Merkel. And if the Merkel coalition is the most social-democratic effort Germany can produce, Europe will soon be a thing of the past.
> If this does not suit the German people, then maybe we should just give up the federal project altogether.
Sorry, but that is just fatalistic. Europe will never be the US and does not need to. Germany itself is a federal project with differences among the states. Take the UK, Spain or Belgium for even harsher examples. With these differences even within the European states, you cannot expect them to give away control over economic and fiscal policies without any gain of influence. That is not how democracy works. If my money is spent, I want the right to vote on how it is spent.
I also want the UK in. For hundreds of years Europe’s situation was decided by how well its great powers got along with each other. I think the UK is essential for the definition of Europe. Besides that: The UK has virtually no industry left and London is the biggest financial market in Europe. As someone living in Frankfurt I am okay with that. But do you really think the UK does not know, that Germany will not let them leave without taking London away? I recently talked to a German MEP, who said this in nicer terms. I think "Better together" will be nothing compared to the bank sponsored campaign that will be started once the UK actually tries to leave.
> Besides, you cannot integrate welfare without common money pools
That is true, but there are common money pools. Just start to move parts of the welfare systems up one level to the EU and increase their funding.
> Tony Blair really was a wannabe rockstar, and he ended up being the most skillful politician of his generation in the UK, and one of the most influential across the whole of Europe.
You might take a look at the disaster that is currently happening in the middle-east, that he and his buddy Bush caused so skillfully.
> You have to face the fact that these guys are actually good: they took a smalltime leftist operation and got them in government. They managed to coopt some of their worst enemies on the right and basically took them out of the game. They tried to build a coalition across countries with similar interests, and the failure there is just due to political weakness on the other side […] But if you make them heroes to their people, making them appear as the saviours of national pride, they will have the political capital to make bolder choices in any area.
You might call the ability to increase once power skillful governing, I think we all learned that we are better of with democratic majorities behind the decision itself instead of the benevolent leader who makes them.
> […] Schauble, who is in fact a law graduate and much to the right of Merkel.
I do not like him either, but because of his former job as Secretary of the Interior [0]. Finally not spending more than you have is an achievement he will be remembered for, even if he was in a unique situation to do it easily.
> And if the Merkel coalition is the most social-democratic effort Germany can produce, Europe will soon be a thing of the past.
They introduced pension presents for mothers and workers, regulated rent and broker commissions for tenants and introduced a minimum wage in the past two years alone. This is not a defensive argument for Merkels achievements, I could think of much better ways to spend that money, but an argument for the CDUs social-democratic character.
Edit: Forced end of conversation by HN. Nice discussion, we will see how it will work out :)
The 'austerity' policies you put between quotes hit the regular Greek population where it hurts and meanwhile do nothing whatsoever to really affect the future of Greece in a positive way.
To see the problem in financial terms applied today only is to miss the wood for the trees, this problem goes back decades.
Public pressure should but it won't.
Not that it really matters, because the EC doesn't have to respect the result of the EP vote. It is just symbolic.
I am assuming it’s also non-governmental think tanks that come up with the ideas that leave us the funny acronym sounding legislations that is not in the public’s best interest. Why do they have to draft the proposals in secret if it’s good for the public? If you are not ashamed of your actions you show it, if you hide something or lie you are afraid that in the light others might not like what you propose.
The computer analogy would be open source vs closed source or security by obscurity.
The problem is rather the disproportionate influence of corporations on trade talks through lobbying. That needs to end and there needs to be a complementary influence by NGOs to balance the effects of lobbyists.
- the politician lives necessarily close the majority of the people and his personal safety (and that of his family) is in danger if he blatantly disrespects the will of the people
- people can more easily "vote with their feet" because they just need to move a few dozen miles away to live in another legislation which enables them to keep most of their social network.
There is too much money at stake.
We don't want this "prosperity" if they're going to undo many regulations we have in place for our safety. Food-industry regulations, plastic/chemicals regulations.
Thanks, but no thanks. Deregulating is not as cool as "liberal" guys tell us.
Given actually complete freedom, companies would cartelize to monopolies and suppress any competition or innovation, so they would have a status quo, could dictate the prices, buy the political system to prevent any change that could harm them and finally squeeze as much profit as possible out of everyone so that the rich people can get even richer while the poor ones (99%) suffer without any chance tho change something. Free market stories are used to have a carrot on a stick in front of people so they don't complain too much, and "influenced" mass media surpasses the free will of most people.
Our "misguided whims of bureaucrats" seem to regulate too much, but the reality is that there is just way too much bullshit out there. Regulation leads to standardization and everyone benefits after a short period of moaning.
The EU is a political construct yet you promote the benefits of a stronger EU while deriding the political system.
>This private justice would ensure that the free market reigns, not the misguided whims of bureaucrats who like to make tyrannical regulatory laws in their quest for more political power.
Basically this whole thing exists solely to strengthen the power of huge US companies against these "nasty" EU regulations. No thanks, deregulation isn't something we want here.
Even if everything here falls apart regarding connections to the US we would still be humming along just fine in the EU.
US companies run circles around EU companies because US has a freer business environment, although both could learn a lot from Singapore even more.
Yes, the top 1% in the US have much more money than the top 1% in EU, but that's it. Oh my god, we also have less startups with boatloads of funding that develop the next big social messenger thingy, or mobile app for optimizing "how to burn through VC". Woo!
Seriously, you lost me with "socialist policies". This is complete bullshit. You have to strike a balance between business greediness and general welfare.
So it has come to this. TTP and TTIP has become so poisonous that its dirty lobby are now sending paid shills to create accounts on social networking and news sites and post fake support.
That's terrible and excellent news at the same time. It's terrible because I don't want those shills here. It's excellent because it means we're winning.
I would be glad if the agreement simply ended tariffs and protectionism. It's completely silly that certain products in the UK cost double the same product in the U.S., even after adjusting for VAT. For example Grivel G12 crampons cost $175 in the U.S. And about £150 in the UK. Things like clothing are hugely more expensive in France than the U.S. (North Face jackets for example.) Hershey's syrup is triple the price than in the U.S. However conversely, Nutella is actually cheaper in the U.S. There are thousands of examples like this. It's funny how a Volkswagen made in the U.S. And sold in the U.S. is less expensive than a Volkswagen made in Germany and sold in Germany.
In a globalized world where even transport costs have been nuked into the ground by megaships and their likes, prices reflect only what the local market will bear. Clothes cost more in France because the French will pay more for them, simple as. That's why we pay £ 1 for an iTunes song in UK and in the US they pay $ 1, regardless of where the music is "manufactured".