Good old EU
Yesterday, the Remain camp were claiming that leaving the EU would threaten the environment (I jest not). Turns out they got the whole argument back to front.
Looks like trade deals will be much quicker once we're out.
The controversial EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty text has been leaked to Greenpeace. The documents have been posted at www.ttip-leaks.org, and in the main they've been picked over for their impact on environmental regulation. On that topic, European commentators are hitting the roof, …
It appears that the French are far from ecstatic about TTIP, perhaps it is time we were a bit less supine as well. They are threatening to bring the charade to a halt which just might be the best thing they have done in a long time.
Mind you Uncle Sam's massed lawyers salivating at robbing those pesky Europeans would not like it if it does go that way. So all strength to the French in this one.
> Looks like trade deals will be much quicker once we're out.
Of course, because the Tories will say "Yes, we'd love to dismantle all our environmental and consumer and worker protection regulations, which will make us all richer (after all, nobody will be poor, or, at least, nobody worth speaking of) since there's no pesky EU to stop us from doing it any more. Then we dump the Human Rights Act and make sure that the only people have Rights and Liberties are the ones we like... Trebles all round!"
Where did you get the Human Rights Act from? The EU will always be s***e as trade deals because of the number of potentially interested parties, i.e. the member states.
As you are an anti Tory, free trade is one of the Tory Parties 4 pillars/beliefs. The others for reference are: Freedom of Speech, The Union and Small government. As, I assume you are, a working person which ones do you disagree with?
Freedom Of Speech vs Snoopers Charter: Point to Snoopers Charter
The Union vs Totally Disillusioning Everyone In Scotland: Point to Scottish Nationalists
Free Trade vs Attempting To Pull The UK Out Of Major Trade Block: Point to Brexit
Small Government vs Ever Growing Security Apparatus: Point to GCHQ
So which of those tenets to the Tories agree with? Currently they are 4-0 down.
Hmm,
Freedom Of Speech vs Snoopers Charter: Point to Snoopers Charter
Really why, as they are totally different entities.
The Union vs Totally Disillusioning Everyone In Scotland: Point to Scottish Nationalists
I believe MOST scots voted tostay in the union.
Free Trade vs Attempting To Pull The UK Out Of Major Trade Block: Point to Brexit
Most Tories are for Brexit and free trade, although Cameron, Osbourne et al are not.
Small Government vs Ever Growing Security Apparatus: Point to GCHQ
Personally I fancy my chances with GCHQ on my side than say Belgium.
So which of those tenets to the Tories agree with? Currently they are 4-0 down.
I think we have a different score
> free trade is one of the Tory Parties 4 pillars/beliefs
Yes, free of all those tiresome restrictions on environmental damage and consumer protections and corporate responsibility and anything else that would get in the way of the owners making lots more money by screwing the rest of us.
> Freedom of Speech
ITYM "Freedom to say and do things that we approve of, but not otherwise".
Remember this quote from David Cameron: "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone"...?
> The Union
But not the Trade Union, unless you think that it's reasonable for strike ballots to consider that every person who didn't vote is a vote against strike action. (What percentage of the electorate *didn't* vote for the Tories...?)
> Small government
A "small government" which has voted itself a big pay rise whilst forcing austerity on the rest of us? One that is pi$$ing away huge amounts of public money on failing projects like Universal Credit? One that has flogged off the family silver and is now getting rid of the furniture in a desperate attempt to reduce the huge amount it's having to borrow, even though they claimed they'd have got rid of the deficit by last year?
Oh, BTW, I'm not anti-Tory, I'm anti- any entitled political idiots who desperately cling to failed policies whilst blaming the poorest in society for said failures.
America also wants Europe to give it input into electrotechnical standards (for example, electrical product safety).
European electrotechnical standards are one of the main drivers for forcing the issue on making tech more green in the later years. The cynical part of me thinks that this not about product safety. It is the same issue all over again - preventing tightening directly or indirectly of environmental protection standards. Because, ya know, environmental regulations should not stay in the way of r*ping the consumer for more profit.
European standards have also been the "gold standard" for industrial safety systems, which are closely interlinked with electro-technical standards. I've designed a number of machine control systems in Canada, and the relevant government approved safety standards simply gave CSA (Canadian standard) numbers to European standards. The equivalent US standards were either non-existent or out of the dark ages. US companies hoping to export machinery to most places had to meet European standards or find their products unsaleable abroad.
European safety standards put industrial safety on a sound scientific/engineering basis compared to the "we've always done things this way" conventions that I saw when I first started my career. The standards let you buy products that worked in a known way and were to be used according to clear guidelines (two hand controls, light curtains, safety relays, door switches, emergency stops, etc.) from multiple suppliers instead of getting God knows what that someone cobbled together himself.
European companies came to dominate the industrial control market because their stuff was simply a lot better than most of the stuff coming from the US (software excepted). Europeans standards being the cutting edge (rather than being non-existent) had a lot to do with that, at least in the safety field.
What's perhaps most revealing is the CENELEC issue where the US are demanding input into European standards, and explicitly NOT offering reciprocal access to their own processes. This type of asymmetry, which we've seen previously in extradition agreements etc. could actually be the Achilles heel of the process, as the US see it as "normal", but it is increasingly seen as unacceptable Hegemony by Europeans.
Agreed it has to be a two way process or nothing.
We have yet to agree to change our (UK at least) largely three wire standards with a three pin fused plug and nominal 230 volt appliances. Our wiring standards are very different to those of many places and do not suit the USA practices of central boards with current flow and imbalance breakers and ECLB, etc. serving direct feeds often to specific items. What they are really concerned about is being sued when, (not if) things go wrong. Since most of the stuff comes from China anyway, which bit of Chinese production are they concerned with? If the EU standards (a very big IF) resulted in lower running costs and higher safety than USA designs that would give EU managed devices a clear advertising edge. However I suspect that the desire is to shield their marketeers might limit the ability of EU based advertisers the right to complain about substandard US products.
As an example of the possible chaos, my bathroom installer is currently battling to provide a shaver socket that works and that is from a nominally EU compliant source, god help us if USA 'wiring codes', (are they even universal in the USA?) are added to the mix.
The biggest issue is likely to be a drugs war, where some US companies have 'interesting track records' over the products they produce and foist onto an unsuspecting public. They then try to suppress data on their effects. There is also a track record over other countries' production standards with at least one situation in a more or less stable state of dispute about quality and reliability.
We have yet to agree to change our (UK at least)
Indeed. UK wiring standard is quite far off from the Eu. In some areas it is safer. In others it is a right pain in the b*** to work with and a nightmare to augment or change wiring correctly. F.E. Most of the Eu mandates running both phase and neutral to the light switches nowdays which makes installing sensor control and/or smart switches a breeze. UK still mandates running only phase and having those retro 1960-es style ancient patchboards to which you supposedly screw a 1960-es style pendant on the ceiling (first thing to rip out in a new house).
In any case, I suspect this is not so much about wiring code, it is about appliance safety and power efficiency requirements. Eu regularly updates these (every 5 years or thereabouts) tightening up the code further and further. If TTIP was in effect it would have been "arbitrated" not to as that would have prevented a set of usual suspects from ripping off the consumer for more profits.
Never underestimate a Merkins racial trait to think up "innovative" scam business models.
They think of stuff you'd never imagine to pre-emptively block in a million years, because it's so mind numbingly dumb. They find legal loopholes the same way vermin always find that one crack to crawl though, by force of numbers.
Investor-state dispute settlement is about tying your hands so you can't defend yourself against their money grubbing ways.
Yes, it permits *everything*, via a 'Panel' to settle trade disputes.
The complainant gets to choose the panel that decides, and there's no requirement that the panel be confined to the legally valid ones. Document 15. One the panel decides, then they are obligated to fix whatever law is needed.
Perhaps an example makes is clearer: When the EU Patent office tried to legalize software patents. It claimed that the ruling of the EU Patent court meant that it had to legalize pure software patents. Only the EU Patent court isn't a real court, its an office under the EU Patent Office! So really they were pretending to have the power to change laws because they rejected the law themselves!
In the new treaty, they're trying the same trick. Instead of negotiating the exact trade treaty terms, they want a mechanism which will decide the future terms of trade via resolution dispute. Leaving the other terms so broad as to cover anything 'trade' related.
So the resolution mechanism REQUIRES changing the law, rather than REQUESTING changing the law on penalty of trade sanctions.
Quote: [The Party complained against shall take any measure necessary to comply promptly and in good faith with the panel ruling.]
These panels are really corporate lawyers, so 3 corporate lawyers have a secret meeting, agree a result, and then the laws have to be changed to suit that result. Regardless of the national and laws and pesky democracy, parliaments etc. And regardless that the negotiators of the treaty haven't been handed the powers they're now trying to sign into law.
So software patents? Yes. GMO in everything yes? No labelling of bad stuff? Yes. Protected Corporate monopolies? Yes. Creation of new IP rights? Yes. Censorship of bad reviews? Yes. Anything goes if 3 corporate lawyers meeting in secret decide it is a matter that affects US-EU trade.
Now of course the negotiators doing this don't hold the powers they're creating in the treaty! But after a few years, and lots of obsfuction, who would be in a position to sue to declare the treaty illegal?
EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström?
Ah yes, I remember, she claims that the silent majority of people are in support of TTIP. The opposition is just more noisy. Which is why the treaty is negotiated in secret, without even national parliaments being allowed to read it, yet the US corporate lawyers pushing it get to read it in full.
Corporate sovereignty clauses, mean that a country can pass a law by a democratic parliament, that the whole EU can agree how good that law is, and the people can agree how sensible the law is. Then along comes a Monsanto, Esso, Bayer, Philip Morris, or similar, and say "that law is bad for our trade profits" and have the law removed by a tribunal of corporate lawyers.
Since the EU Commission doesn't have the power to arbitrarily remove national laws, it doesn't have the power to award such a right to a tribunal of lawyers*. So this treaty can never be legal with Corporate Sovereignty clauses in it. She's agreeing powers that were never entrusted to her.
And the Germans courts have already explained to the EU, that a tribunal of corporate lawyers has none of the characteristics of a court, even if she calls it a 'court'.
So at this point, what is she negotiating? An illegal corporate takeover of EU National governments? And doing it in secret so the people, and even the parliaments of those countries can't read the text?
* Note also, National Leaders also don't have such a power. Angela Merkel cannot make herself "Chancellor for life".
while in x years it will be merely a part of the agreement, and these are God-sent, i.e. you can never, ever, never-ever-never even dream of re-negotiating and re-writing them, and those who do, well, we know where you live, you TERRORISTS, and please stand by by the keyboard, the solution's already on the way, fast...
"In response to the leak, EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has blogged to say the leak is of a negotiating text that merely shows that there remain differences between the US and EU positions on the treaty."
They keep making this claim, that it's somehow not a problem what's in the leaked texts because they're "draft copies" or "negotiating text". Surely the whole point of that kind of document is that at least one side is pushing to have that particular wording signed off on? We're not talking about internal notes, we're talking about a copy of the document which people are being asked to sign, even if there is still negotiating going on
@" Surely the whole point of that kind of document is that at least one side is pushing to have that particular wording signed off on?"
Yeh the *text* will be agreed, and then it will be handed over for 'ratification'. The word itself will try to imply its no longer negotiable. For TPP they even did this 'signing ceremony' by the needles*. Full of symbolism as if it was being signed into law, and the actual law making process was just a formality and not the real process.
* Needles, because the negotiators are needles in the surveillance haystack, they'll be the most watched, most shaped and most tasked to ensure the wanted outcome of negotiations occur. One of the benefits of secret negotiations is it limits discussion to a few known needles, so far fewer phones to tap, meetings to spy on, emails to read, people to influence, discussion points to head off...
American telcos and Internet firms believe the EU is crimping their ability to compete on a level playing field, while on the other side, Europeans believe America wants to dismantle their privacy protections.
Shorter: the US is pushing for abandoning those pesky things called (Human) Rights because they get in the way of sell, sell, sell whereas the EU is asking the US to actually follow the concepts they agreed to many years ago because, you know, you ought to nominally stick to things you agree to.
The problem I have with all of this is that both sides of this equation are doing their level best to pretend that they're democratic. If, so, why the secrecy?
Now we know: it was because they indeed have something to hide. For people that's normal, but for governments, that is IMHO utterly unacceptable, and attempts in that direction are unforgivable. Now the contents of TTIP is laid bare, it is yet again clear that governments and politicians can simply NOT be trusted with any degree of secrecy, and attempts to attain such must be viewed with the utter suspicion those attempts deserve.
Playing devil's advocate here
American telcos and Internet firms believe the EU is crimping their ability to compete on a level playing field, while on the other side, Europeans believe America wants to dismantle their privacy protections.
But
In last week's article where so EU joker was saying we should all login to the Internet with our state issued ID cards there was the comment
The European Commission has noticed that only four per cent of the most used internet platforms come from the EU. And it’s noticed some dangers to competition from dominant platforms, too:
Perhaps there is a correlation here. Perhaps very few popular Internet sites are of EU origin because the legal framework here leads people to think "We can't do that, it might be illegal somewhere" whilst the US mind set leads to an approach of "Hey, lets just try it and see what happens"
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TPP TTIP.
Effectively; Citizens United For the vast majority of the western world, and a substantial portion of the east as well.
Corporates can sue, petition, and dismiss individual laws, on out to entire legal frameworks as they negatively influence the corporate entity's profitability.
Both of these devices need to be shredded, the authors, negotiators and their sponsors hunted down, herded up, corralled and placed on a desert island with two (plastic) bottles of water and a loaf of (Roundup forced wheat) bread. The last one standing with the winnings shall be dropped in the Marianas Trench with a concrete waistcoat.
{mine's the one with "Shock Doctrine" in the pocket}
> companies complaining that new regulations would spoil their expectations of a stable business environment
On what planet, in which galaxy of which multiverse has it ever been reasonable to expect a stable business environment? There's a joke in there about livery stables not being remunerative any more, but I can't be bothered to go after it. The serious point is that over my lifetime we've seen vast innovations that have destabilized loads of business models. Where are the typewriter manufacturers, and the videotape rental chains? They didn't go out of business because of regulations, but the manufacturers of ethyl lead fuel additives, and most purveyors of tobacco products did.
Bottom line: businesses do not have a right to expect stable business environments. Negotiating the perils of unstable ones is the risk that C-level executives already get paid obscenely large salaries for.
Any country which leaves the EU will still be part of TTIP. You don't honestly think the Pacific nations were all part of some cosy little EU equivalent, do you? No, the smaller ones go strong-armed in and once some acquiesced, the rest followed so as not to be frozen out of trade deals. The response was "a shite deal is better than no deal".
At least the EU is big enough to have some leverage and now that the information is out in the open, we might see not only some stronger negotiating but enough countries realising the perils might end up putting the kybosh on it. France and Germany are already making noises, even before this leak.
I do wonder if this leak is deliberate to increase EU negotiating strength.
At least we would have some sort of influence on our government if not part of the eu. The local governments of eu states basically have no autonomy and just act on what Brussels tells them. And there no-one (except the eu parliament, which basically has only token power over any decision made) will losten to mere citizens. Not when companies fill the commisionaries' pockets.
Btw, to any Dutch readers who have been living under a rock (just as i usually do), apparently we're moving towards a referendum to voice a big NO to this corruption: https://ttip-referendum.nl/