Puzzled of Lyme Regis writes:
Information and interpretation relating to the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) seems confusing/conflicting, despite coming from reputable sources. Can any Lib Dem Voice followers help with their information and interpretations?
Here are some particular statements and questions. Corrections/Improvements to the statements, answers and observations mightily appreciated!
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills opines that the TTIP will bring personal savings and general economic benefits etc (see Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) benefits and concerns and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: What’s in IT for Me?). 38 Degrees opines that it will lower safety/health standards and give corporations power over government etc.
- Which source is more accurate?
- In which ways?
- Will the tariff savings result in lower government spending on services or be recouped by raising other charges on the public?
- Is there cost/benefit analysis information on the environmental consequences of the TTIP?
Best/longest lasting partnerships/treaties etc. are those which are thoroughly understood and have “no nasty surprises”
- Why are the negotiations (so) secret, even for MPs etc.?
- Why no interim/stage reports on what has been negotiated so far?
The Investor State Dispute Settlement system is said by some to be more connected to corporations than any other group with “judges” and “counsels” from the corporate world and impervious/unaccountable to the public/states.
- Is there a detailed description of it (available)?
- How do members of the public access courts, judgements, fines, costs etc.? (It seems they could have to pay at least some.)
- Why are the current legal systems of the USA, UK etc. considered inadequate?
It is said that TTIP type legislation would enable corporations to sue and obtain payment from governments which have been adjudged to have damaged corporation profits/potential profits by their national legislation passed for the protection/betterment of their citizens.
- Why would/should a nation- state subordinate itself to the power of a legal system unknown to its parliament and its citizens and which may lack impartiality credibility?
The TTIP seems to affect governments, suppliers of goods and services, customers and employees etc.
- What are the relative proportions of inputs for all groups affected?
Intellectual Property Protection sounds big in the TTIP. Economists Boldrin and Levine [“Against Intellectual Monopoly” CUP 2008] evidence that IPP is a form of monopoly. “Monopolies make less available at a higher price—such as the availability of AIDS drugs”. They also obstruct innovation. In an “industry full of ideas and creativity IP does not play a useful role. It is when ideas run out and new competitors come in with fresher ideas that those bereft of them turn to government intervention-and IP.”
- Why create an obstruction to the free market and “co-operative competition” [early IT etc.] when there are other ways to well reward innovators and facilitate the production of cheaper, better widgets and services for more people?
Excessive governmental Intellectual Property Protection of corporations appears to damage society for it makes corporations over mighty merchants and employers. This gives them inordinate power over citizens and society, by corporations being protected from potential competitors. This reduces competition between sellers and employers for customers and employees.
- Is there detailed cost/benefit information on the effects of the TTIP on our society?
P.S. Do read Economist Moshe Adler [ “May Day: a Trade Agreement to Unite Third World and American Workers”] for a better exposition of citizen focussed international trade policies!
* Steve Trevathan is chairperson of Lyme Regis and Marshwood Vale Liberal Democrats.
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21 Comments
Negotiations are stalled. These deals take years, maybe decades and may not happen at all.
I thought this video (H/T Zerohedge) of the attempts of an Irish independent MEP (who sits with the European United Left group) to gain access TTIP documents were quite interesting: https://youtu.be/Ozj0qwnMGZ0
Perhaps it’s not too surprising that there is such confusion.
@Steve Trevethan
“It is said that TTIP type legislation would enable corporations to sue and obtain payment from governments which have been adjudged to have damaged corporation profits/potential profits by their national legislation passed for the protection/betterment of their citizens.
Why would/should a nation- state subordinate itself to the power of a legal system unknown to its parliament and its citizens and which may lack impartiality credibility?”
Steve, I have been persuaded that such a “court” system would be fair, ironically by a briefing I was sent (as a councillor) by an anti-TTIP group.
The briefing is to be found at http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/local_authorities_briefing_0.pdf
In particular it gives this supposed argument against the proposed “courts” on page 2:
Case study: German local government decision on coal power station overturned
In 2008, the local government in the German city of Hamburg insisted that a coal power station being constructed comply with more stringent environmental standards to safeguard the Elbe River. Vattenfall, the Swedish company constructing the power station, responded by taking Germany to international arbitration under the Energy Charter treaty.
Although that was clearly given as an example of how supposedly awful these international courts are, it struck me as being a good example of why they are needed. If governments (national or local) “move the goalposts” even if for the “protection / betterment of their citizens”, as you put it, then it seems to me to be totally fair that corporations that have <b<already entered into contracts in good faith, should be able to be compensated.
I’m a firm believer in free trade, but I’m very dubious about TTIP, and I’ll attempt to explain why.
While I believe in free trade, major corporations generally don’t. Of course they shout about if they perceive their profits are being impeded in some way, but what they actually want is the playing field tipped in their favour, and competitors or new technologies held back. Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this – it’s their job, just like it’s the job of Governments and regulators to keep the playing field level.
So can we trust Government and regulators to do this? We live in a modern world of corporate lobbying, where senior politicians and civil servants slip seamlessly into lucrative roles in the corporations they are supposed to regulate, and sometimes back again. And we know that corporations have been involved and consulted all the way along on TTIP, whilst the developing text has been kept secret from the public, and even some of the politicians representing us, apart from the various leaks.
TTIP is a major undertaking, and will result in large and complex final document. And large corporations with their armies of lawyers and accountants just love complexity (even if they say they don’t) because complexity = loopholes. Look at the UK tax code as an example.
My worry is that when the final text eventually emerges, it will contain good stuff that we want, and bad stuff that we don’t. But it will be “take it all, or leave it”, and we will be told that the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff, so we should just accept it for our own good.
What I don’t understand about TTIP is why does it have to harmonise regulations? Surely this takes laws out of democratic control and creates a single market, but unlike the EU single market there will be no parliament.
How do we change the regulations and standards agreed by TTIP? It will take years at a time. It should just be for an end to trade tariffs and then everyone will understand it and be comfortable with it.
I think
Eddie Sammon – you radical lefty, you.
There is this fantasy, largely put about by 38 degrees that there is no information about TTIP about. The trade Commissioner – one of ours actually – Cecelia Malström has recently published a very public document, ‘The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) –State of Play’, ( available on http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2016/april/tradoc_154477.pdf ) that sets out very clearly where the negotiations are at. It has a very specific section about public services, which says:
“In July 2015 both sides presented revised offers (on market access to services). Market access offers in this area reflect the joint commitment from Commissioner Malmström and US Trade Representative Michael Froman that TTIP will safeguard the ways that national governments choose to deliver and run the public services they offer to their own citizens.”
I do not think it is possible for the Commissioner to be clearer about protecting the NHS and other public services, yet 38 degrees continue to claim – totally incorrectly – that public services are at risk.
There may still be some way to go to get TTIP right, but it is surely incumbent on those debating the issue to get their facts right and most certainly not to make false and misleading claims.
TYFYR (Thank you for your responses!) Perhaps the longer the negotiations go on, the louder the questions on secrecy? The impartiality of courts and their accessibility seems a matter for constant vigilance and public involvement. The citizen jury helps here. What is “Free Trade”? Do complex treaties with little/no apparent alteration and/or exit clauses encourage or discourage the new small business?
I agree entirely with Mick Taylor. There is a vast amount of information out there about TTIP, if one cares to look (and not very hard).
As liberals, surely the rationale should go something like this: we believe in free trade (I hope); the barriers to trade now are infinitely more complex than they were when the prime issue were the Corn Laws; projects like the EU are built to recognise this and harmonise regulation etc to facilitate greater volumes of trade; the EU, as well as perfecting the single market, surely should do all it can to do encourage trade and investment with countries outside the EU?
Of course we should scrutinise closely — and with a sceptical eye — the final agreement. But we should not do it from a presumption of it being the dastardly threat to liberal democracy that those on the far left and right have sought to portray it as.
It’s good to see from the comments above that we still have some liberal minded people in the Liberal Democrats.
I agree with what’s been said about the “secrecy” being overdone. It’s not as secret as all that. Most international negotiations take place in some kind of privacy, since each government wants to protect itself from being embarrassed by the compromises it makes. You may just as well ask why David Cameron’s EU renegotiation was secret. I think it was more secret than TTIP.
On dispute resolution, my understanding is that the EU side is now proposing a special court, rather than an “ISDS” panel. Most of the questions you ask could equally be asked of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. If countries make agreements, the best way to ensure disputes are resolved impartially (a concern you mention) is to have an international court or panel to resolve them. If matters were left to national courts alone, EU exporters to the US might not trust US courts to deal with them fairly, and vice versa; and the two sets of courts might diverge in their understanding of the agreement, which would make it unworkable.
TTIP is obviously very complex, as you’d expect from a massive EU-US trade negotiation. I don’t pretend to have vast expertise about it. But what I’ve read suggests that the campaign against it hugely exaggerates its alleged defects, and that its opponents basically just don’t want freer trade with America.
The silliest position of all is of course the Brexiters’ position, which is that TTIP is awful but that we really, really want free trade with the US, and the UK alone will be able to bully the US into a better deal than the whole EU can get.
TYFYR! Is a liberal democratic society (nation, international organisation, party, club etc.) one which is energetically open and energetically involves its people in what it does?
If not, what?
If so, what rating, on a notional scale of 1-10 would you give the TTIP negotiations?
Do the TTIP details include banks? (How can we know with direct reliable information?) If so, will a consequence be that a nation-state which successfully sues a bank on behalf of its people will have to pay the bank compensation for the loss of profits? (Cf tobacco companies?)
There are plenty of scholarly economic discussions which don’t get much of an airing, but tend to suggest raised unemployment and a definite move from Schumacher’s ‘small is beautiful’ and individual creativity. Parties in this prospective Treaty deal will be working for their national self interest (USA very expert/experienced of course), the ‘self interest’ of the EU is not always easy to fathom, but it is very healthy that questions are being asked at many levels in Europe about TTIP.
I’d prefer to go to the US ‘zero option’ i. e. What would it look like if EU wholly adopted US practice on everything from food labelling through medical health, approach to human/working people’s employment rights e.g. Maternity/paternity leave; and then the big Agri Chemical lobby, military industrial etc. What would the US ‘supra national’ picture look like? Koch brothers writ very large or East Coast enlightened liberalism.
TTIP thoroughly discussed and democratised could be beneficial, but NOT if it goes through on the supra national corporate nod (which might well have happened). In all this I would profoundly mistrust Tory UK to negotiate anything for us – it would be final destruction of manufacturing base plus cherry picking for the ‘GDP’ enhancing South East. Far better to have EU negotiation – if only because Getman, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian etc youth still feel their future is worth fighting for.
Perfect solution? A Schumacher TTIP ( no not the founding father of the EU but the adopted AngloPhile economist who saw the real life issues).
It is very difficult to know what to say about TTIP because so much of it is shrouded in secrecy – and the serious press indicate it is mired in a disputed blockage by the French and others.
Now Mick Taylor and Nick Thornsby (our Mick ‘n Nick combo) constantly tell us all is well about the NHS because an unelected Commissioner Cecilia Malstrom tells us so. The problem with that is that as an unelected commissioner who is she accountable to…. and could she be over-ruled by powers of whom we know nothing ?
One of the characteristics of being a proper Liberal is to be sceptical of those with power and authority. This has been proved to be the case over the centuries – the opposite is complacent conservatism.
I for one will always be instinctively suspicious of deals done behind closed doors between unelected officials and big business inspired by the profit motive rather than altruism. (especially given such a manipulative and unequal world nowadays)
What I say to Mick is that as a Quaker he ought to reflect on what Bernard Shaw said in 1931 about the conscientious objectors in World War One.
“After all, we have to admit that it is always the troublesome people who force us to remedy the abuses that we lazily let slide”.
The “unelected Commissioner” is accountable to the elected national government which appointed her and to the elected European Parliament which has the power to sack her and the rest of the Commission.
The procedure for a treaty like this (and, indeed, all treaties) is very simple:
Negotiations take place in secret
An agreement is reached
The treaty is then published in full
The European Parliament scrutinises and decides whether to accept or reject the treaty
National parliaments do the same
David Raw: ‘could she be over-ruled by powers of whom we know nothing ?’ Careful, David, about tip-toeing into conspiracy-theory territory. We know who the various authorities and powers are, and the negotiations that will have to take place before whatever may be agreed is implemented. It’s the stuff of UKIP stories to suggest that there are unknown forces hidden in Brussels determined to undermine everything we hold dear!.
Unlike David Raw, I also consider the Quaker advice, ‘consider that you might be mistaken’.
With that in mind, unlike David Raw, I actually check my facts. As a retired senior lecturer in government and politics, I used to teach my students how the EU works. It is far more open and accessible than almost any national government in the EU. The roles of Commissioners, the Commission, its President, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament are clearly laid down in the treaties with the power to make EU law or treaties firmly in the hands of national government ministers in the Council of Ministers in partnership with the European Parliament. So even if the Commission wanted to make a bad deal, they could not do it if either the council or the parliament disagreed. I have already pointed ou that the ALDE member and trade commissioner has published a series of position papers on TTIP, the most recent in late April 2016. This by the way is the same trade commissioner who has stood up to mobile phone companies and forced them to drastically cut charges for phone users travelling in Europe. Hardly someone likely to sell out consumer interests or put public services at risk.
TTIP is by no means a done deal. There’s lots more to be negotiated. The negotiations are fronted by Cecelia Malström for the EU and US Trade Representative Michael Froman, but when the negotiations are completed a proposal will be put to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and will not be brought in unless and until these 2 bodies agree.
No conspiracy here or any secret undertakings. No hidden special clauses threatening the NHS, whatever 38 degrees might say.
So I say to David Raw, please don’t think to lecture me on my religious affiliation, stick to the facts and stick to the politics.
@ William Wallace As always, William (as someone who will vote to support continued membership of the EU), always happy to listen and to accept your advice – tho’ the UKIP thing was pushing it a bit. As I understand it Cecilia Malstrom was appointed by the previous Prime Minister of Sweden who lost office shortly afterwards…….. so, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility she could be over-ruled or even removed ‘by powers of whom we know nothing’.
@ Mick Taylor. Sorry, Mick, but it was you that brought up the Quakers in a post some months ago without ‘checking facts’ about what my views were. In fact, I have attended meetings, and whilst not a member I do have a very deep respect for the Friends tradition… . especially in war time in West Yorkshire and in the Calder Valley…. something I happen to know a bit about.
No, I’m not member of 38 degrees and I’m certainly not lecturing you. I’m asking perfectly legitimate questions….., so I’ll leave it to others to decide whether you’re doing what you say you’re good at and lecturing me.
The lousy ISDS arrangements, the secrecy, the risk of watering down our environmental and consumer protection standards … I hope dies, literally that it withers on the vine!!
@ William Wallace
William, Are you able to provide any re-assurance that the ISDS arrangements in TTIP will not became a feast for corporate lawyers taking legal action against governments with a consequent drain on the public purse in fighting them off ?
Do read Michael Hudsons’s excellent article THE DANGERS OF FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS: TTIPS’S THREAT TO THE ELDERLY [http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/11/the-dangers-of-free-trade-agreements-ttips-threat-to-europes-elderly/]
Here’s an extract,
“Enormous sums of money are being spent on public relations, and to support politicians willing to shepherd corporate monopoly power against that of democratic government and voters.—It is much more than a free trade agreement. Its “investor dispute” mechanism threatens to disenfranchise governments. The intent is to block them from protecting Europe’s economy, population and basic social philosophy that has developed over the past century of social democracy.”
PS. Thank you for all the comments!