to be vvv scared of TTIP? (NHS, gm foods, banking, privacy)

[marryj]

I've only just heard about this, sounds pretty terrifying to me

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
Have you heard about TTIP? If your answer is no, don’t get too worried; you’re not meant to have.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, said: “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”
Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.

But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are six other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed:
1 The NHS
Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS.
The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to the Huffington Post, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table.
2 Food and environmental safety
TTIP’s ‘regulatory convergence’ agenda will seek to bring EU standards on food safety and the environment closer to those of the US. But US regulations are much less strict, with 70 per cent of all processed foods sold in US supermarkets now containing genetically modified ingredients. By contrast, the EU allows virtually no GM foods. The US also has far laxer restrictions on the use of pesticides. It also uses growth hormones in its beef which are restricted in Europe due to links to cancer. US farmers have tried to have these restrictions lifted repeatedly in the past through the World Trade Organisation and it is likely that they will use TTIP to do so again.
The same goes for the environment, where the EU’s REACH regulations are far tougher on potentially toxic substances. In Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used; in the US the opposite is true: any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. As an example, the EU currently bans 1,200 substances from use in cosmetics; the US just 12.
3 Banking regulations
TTIP cuts both ways. The UK, under the influence of the all-powerful City of London, is thought to be seeking a loosening of US banking regulations. America’s financial rules are tougher than ours. They were put into place after the financial crisis to directly curb the powers of bankers and avoid a similar crisis happening again. TTIP, it is feared, will remove those restrictions, effectively handing all those powers back to the bankers.
4 Privacy
Remember ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)? It was thrown out by a massive majority in the European Parliament in 2012 after a huge public backlash against what was rightly seen as an attack on individual privacy where internet service providers would be required to monitor people’s online activity. Well, it’s feared that TTIP could be bringing back ACTA’s central elements, proving that if the democratic approach doesn’t work, there’s always the back door. An easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trials are also thought to be on the cards.
5 Jobs
The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment.
Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised.
6 Democracy
TTIP’s biggest threat to society is its inherent assault on democracy. One of the main aims of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments.
ISDSs are already in place in other bi-lateral trade agreements around the world and have led to such injustices as in Germany where Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Here we see a public health policy put into place by a democratically elected government being threatened by an energy giant because of a potential loss of profit. Nothing could be more cynically anti-democratic.
There are around 500 similar cases of businesses versus nations going on around the world at the moment and they are all taking place before ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corporate lawyers appointed on an ad hoc basis, which according to War on Want’s John Hilary, are “little more than kangaroo courts” with “a vested interest in ruling in favour of business.”

So I don’t know about you, but I’m scared. I would vote against TTIP, except… hang on a minute… I can’t. Like you, I have no say whatsoever in whether TTIP goes through or not. All I can do is tell as many people about it as possible, as I hope, will you. We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.

Does seem likely to increase the threat to the NHS of hiving off the rest of the profitable stuff, which would make the less sexy areas go under completely.

I know all about TTIP and everything you've read is scaremongering. We should be embracing it, not running from it.

There have been several MN threads on TTIP (eg www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2171845-TTIP-Latest-EU-deal-threatens-our-NHS )

And I am sure we'll hear far more as UKIP campaigning increases in momentum.

There have indeed been several threads about this and I will say this much again (wearily) before someone else does more than imply it.

It is no use simply blaming the EU for this deal and using it as an excuse to promote isolationist, leaving-the-EU stances.

Without the EU the US will simply negotiate a new deal with the UK alone, and the UK management - I use that term deliberately - do not have either the EU's combined firepower or the will to resist US get-rich-quick schemes.

How many times have UK politicians not been 4 foot up in the air before askng how high when the US says jump - and just how many policies looking after the common interest over that of the elite have there been recently.

It is not the EU which is keeping the NHS in these negotiations - it is the UK, or more specifically David Cameron. The NHS could be excluded tomorrow upon request, or at least negotiation.

Scaremongering is not a helpful term. There are valid concerns and they have not all been answered. No one is a god with a crystal ball- economics is not a precise science - no one knows exactly what will happen and we can all hold valid opinions on it.

Cinnebar Would you be kind enough to outline the benefits please?

I've heard loads of talk along the lines of the OP, but not a lot for the other side...

(I meant that as a genuine qyestion btw, I'm interested to know...)

I'm worried as from what I've read, it sounds like it gives corporations even greater control/influence over governments.

It is very worrying.

Free trade hasn't brought just benefits but also major disbenefits.

It has enabled organised crime to get their fingers in everything, ranging from dangerous high end consumer products (laptop and phone batteries which explode and leave you injured for life, dangerous cosmetics which may cause cancer if used long-term), food which contains all kind of crap, etc. Quality control is more or less out of the window. Jobs have gone.

We spend our money on huge amounts of crap, causing lots of litter and environmental damage. In many places in Asia, workers are being treated like slaves producing the goods for H and M, Primark, etc. etc.

Free trade is great for banks and large corporations. They are the only real winners.

Yes, I absoluteky will - but I'm going out for dinner so will do it tomorrow!

Here are the big petitions against TTIP for anyone who wants to sign;

secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/vince-cable-fix-ttip#petition

stop-ttip.org/

OK, as promised .

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to split my reasoning over two (or possibly more) posts. There are (at least) two strands to my argument, and they are quite involved.

So. TTIP is about liberalising international trade. My first post explains why I support international trade and reducing the barriers that restrict it.

My starting point is that I believe that capitalist economic systems are the best (or least bad) available to us. They're not perfect, for absolute sure, but they're better than any of the alternatives. I like being able to chose the products I buy and the shops I give my business to. And I think that economic choice increases efficiency because weaker businesses improve or go under while good products and businesses do well - and that increases wealth for the population as a whole. (I'm very happy to debate how wealth should best be distributed and if necessary redistributed among the population in a separate thread; it doesn't make any odds for the purposes of explaining why capitalism is OK.)

The argument for free international trade is based on the theory of comparative advantage. To see how it works, imagine two countries, East and West, which both produce two kinds of goods, bicycles and wheat. In a year, an Eastern worker can make two bikes or grow four bushels of wheat. A Westerner, however, can manage only one bushel or one bike. Each country has 100 workers, and initially both of their workforces are split evenly between the two industries. So East produces 200 bushels of wheat and 100 bicycles, whereas West produces 50 bushels and 50 bikes. In total, the world produces 250 bushels of wheat and 150 bikes.

Since East can produce both wheat and bicycles more cheaply than West, it has an absolute advantage in both industries. Even so, Easterners will benefit from trading with Westerners. This is because East is relatively more efficient at growing wheat, where it is four times as productive as West, than it is at making bikes, where it is only twice as productive. In other words, it has a comparative advantage in wheat. At the same time, West has a comparative advantage in making bikes, even though it has no absolute advantage in anything.

Both countries will be better off if each specialises in the industry where it has a comparative advantage, and if the two trade with one another. Specialisation increases world output. Suppose that East specialises in wheat growing, shifting ten workers from its bicycle factories to its fields. It now grows 240 bushels but only 80 bikes. West moves 25 workers from wheat farming into bike making, where its comparative advantage lies, and now produces 75 bikes and 25 bushels. Global production rises - now the world collectively is making 155 bikes and 265 bushels (instead of 150 bikes and 250 bushels).

The point of economic activity, however, is not to produce but to consume. Both countries can enjoy more bikes and more wheat if they trade on terms at which both will gain. If East is going to import bikes, it will pay no more than two bushels in return (if the price were set any higher then it would be better off moving workers back to the bike factory). Similarly, West will pay no more than one bike per bushel. If the price ("terms of trade" in the language of international trade agreements) are set at one-and-a-half bushels per bicycle, then both countries are happy. 33 bushels are traded for 22 bikes. The result is that both countries are better off.

Economists' next argument for free trade is that opening up markets to foreign suppliers increases competition. Without free trade, domestic companies may have enjoyed monopolies that enabled them to keep prices well above marginal costs. Trade liberalisation will undermine that market power. Competition should also spur domestic companies to greater efficiency because they will not be able to pass on the costs of inefficiency through charging higher prices.

In addition, free trade means that firms are no longer limited by the size of their home country, but can sell into bigger markets. In industries where average production costs fall as output increases, producing economies of scale, this means lower costs and prices. In such industries, trade also increases the variety of products on offer. If a car manufacturer, say, were limited to its home market, it would have a choice between producing small quantities of a number of models and large quantities of just a few, which could be produced more cheaply thanks to economies of scale. But given free trade, it would be able to produce more models because they could all be produced in large enough numbers.

Incidentally, the internet has been revolutionary in opening up new markets for micro businesses - and micro businesses benefit most from removing barriers to international trade because they are least well equipped to manage trade barriers.

So my last post explained why I believe in free(r) international trade general terms.

I'm now going to explain why I support TTIP specifically.

First, TTIP isn't that unique. The only thing unusual about TTIP is its scale. TTIP is modelled on the World Trade Organisation's model agreements. International trade agreements have existed for centuries, very successfully. The Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) is about to be signed on almost identical terms, and no-one has protested about that.

Secondly, both CETA and TTIP are to be negotiated between countries that fundamentally play fair (at least in the context of international trade). However, they're being used as models for coming negotiations with other jurisdictions without such a track record, most notably China. China won't sign up to an agreement that isn't on all-fours with CETA and TTIP, so it's really important that we get it right.

Thirdly, I simply don't agree that the process for negotiating TTIP is undemocratic. It's an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and US, with all of the EU member states being fully engaged with the negotiations. Law-making in the EU is every bit as democratic as law-making in the UK, if not more so. EU law, including TTIP in due course, has to be approved by the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. EU Commissioners are appointed by elected officials from members states to represent the EU; Members of Parliament and the Council of Ministers are elected officials.

(Actually, it's more democratic that the UK because our House of Lords includes hereditary peers who are neither elected nor nominated. Now I come to think of it.)

It's not practical for every piece of EU law to be voted on by the electorate in each member state, in the same way that we don't get to vote on every piece of UK law. Neither are we involved in negotiating the terms of UK law. This is no different.

I don't know enough about it all to comment, but I do know a lot about investor state disputes. The OP mentions that some of these already exist. In fact, there are many, many treaties already in existence. The UK is already party to a huge number. They give certain protections to foreign investors, mainly not to be treated less favourably than local investors. This gives foreign companies security to enter into large scale projects that often benefit the host state, e.g. A hydroelectric plant in a developing country. They usually give both parties access to the World Bank's arbitration mechanism to resolve disputes in a neutral environment. They treaties are intended to encourage foreign investment by giving protection to those investments.

This post will outline where the issues are in TTIP, and why I don't agree that you should be scared about them.

The biggest issue in the talks is investor protection, or the system known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows companies to sue governments for damages on lost investments in extra-territorial arbitration panels.

Critics argue that ISDS represents a surrender of national political sovereignty to the deep-pocketed multinationals. This apprehension is not necessarily rational, but it is very potent.

The ISDS system has existed for almost half a century, and there are 9,000 such agreements operating globally, 1,400 of them in the EU. The UK has several hundred, and has never been sued under any of them.

ISDS is intended to do no more than ensure that a foreign company operating in, say, the UK is treated no worse than a UK company would be in the same position. So the UK can't seize its assets without compensation, or subject it to laws that don't also apply to UK businesses. If the UK did do that, then the foreign company could sue the UK through the ISDS system for compensation.

I think that's reasonable. It absolutely doesn't stop any government passing any law that it thinks is right and proper to protect its people. All it requires is that the law treats domestic and foreign companies the same. So if we want to pass a law reducing permissible emissions from power stations then we will be able to do just that. What we won't be able to do is pass law requiring US owned power stations operating in the UK to have lower emissions than UK (or EU) owned ones.

Without ISDS protections foreign companies are less willing to invest in the EU, and free trade is reduced.

One issue is that ISDS is that the arbitration panels are governed by international law. Well, they have to be. It surely doesn't make sense, in my example above, for the foreign company to have to sue the UK government in the UK courts. Neither would it be right if the foreign company could sue the UK government in its own domestic courts, for exactly the same reason - it can only be fair if settled through international courts.

There is a valid criticism that international courts are less transparent than (some) domestic courts; the EU is committed to full transparency in all TTIP ISDS cases.

There is also some criticism that the judges appointed to arbitration tribunals are selected by the companies litigating them. That's not quite true. There are usually three judges - one appointed by each side and one by the international court. Again, the reason for that is so that each side can be confident that it's not being stitched up.

Finally, it's only fair to acknowledge that there have been some piss-poor ISDSs written in the past, that have created some truly shocking judicial decisions to be made (many of them, but by no means all, in the Far East). All I can say we've learned from this. It won't happen here.

x-post with Eurochick!

OK, now let's talk about regulation.

I definitely agree with regulation. I want DS's asthma medicine to be actual, you know, medicine rather than snake oil. I want my food chain to be properly linked. I want my brakes to work when the car in front of me brakes on the motorway. I want my banks to be responsible with my money. Oh yes. Regulation is a good thing, even though it's a barrier on free trade. it's worth it.

But - I also want my regulation to be effective and proportionate.

Why should a car manufactured in the US to stringent US safety standards and thoroughly tested before it leaves the US also be subject to identical testing in the EU on every single part? Wouldn't it make more sense to acknowledge that, in this instance, the US regulation is every bit as good as ours and do away with the duplication?

Where either side isn't convinced that the other side's regulation is tough enough, then it's off the table. I can tell you with absolutely certainty (I have some insight into this) that the US simply will not talk to us about financial services regulation. They simply will not budge on this. I'm willing to bet all the money in my purse against all the money in yours that the US ain't for turning on this. And good for them. They think we're too lax; we disagree - so we'll stick with our regulation and they'll stick with theirs.

But there are many thousands of scenarios where each side can recognise the value of the other's regulation and simplify, simplify.

Jobs now.

Yes, some jobs will be lost in the EU where the US has a comparative advantage (see my post of 08:10).

Equally, some jobs will be lost in the US where the EU has competitive advantage.

Overall, both will be better off.

The thing is to support the people whose jobs are lost through proper welfare provision and proper retraining. By all means vote Labour come May if you don't trust the Conservatives on this (I am), but it's not a good reason to complain about TTIP.

Finally, the NHS.

The European Commission has explicitly ruled out public services from the scope of any market liberalisation in the TTIP. The agreement will not require participating EU members to open up their national health systems to private providers. Following the most recent round of negotiations, both EU and US negotiators have confirmed this position, publicly and on the record.

The reason the UK government says that the health is still being debated is because we do want improved access to the lucrative US market for the UK’s world-class pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors. The same is true for France and Germany.

No European country wants a US-style Medicare system. Why would we? It patently doesn't work. Whereas our healthcare systems, on the whole, do. European politicians aren't stupid. The last thing they want is to be on the hook for breaking something good.

There isn't actually all that much more I can way about the NHS. Either you believe me or you don't. But remember that it isn't just the UK that wants to protect its healthcare, it's the whole of Europe. There is simply no appetite for dismantling European healthcare provision.

Sorry for the epic posts. But I hope that answers your questions, BatteryPoweredHen.

Happy to answer any more you have.

The NHS... the current government has already proven itself hostile to public spending and services of all kinds -you can hardly debate that - and particularly the NHS. Have you seen this story about the possible cuts to come, that would 'fundamentally alter the relation between individuals and state in uk (or whatever it said)?

Do you expect us to believe your statment that DC and his cronies - I think of all the current politicians as pretty much one crop - are just going to ignore the opportunities to further the destruction of the public sector when they have this law brought in under whatever excuse?

I am not very good on this macro-economic structure that has been created, but I do have some queries about the rest of your posts....

Yes in theory international trade can do all that. In theory. In practice it looks more like a race to the bottom for workers' rights. Also in practice capitalism is self-defeating because free competition eventually results in -oh what's the word -one company holding all the cards. In theory there are checks and balances to stop that happening: in practice there aren't.

Also 'free competition' is rarely carried out on the basis of honest fights over quality but involve all sorts of dirty tricks, Microsoft is the example par excellence for that but IBM did it in their day too. So the consumer loses out even under it's own rules, most people don't even begin to realise how shoddy microsoft's offering really is and how much they're being ripped off but their os and software are still going strong.

Meanwhile what we're seeing is inequality growing and wealth concentrating in the hands of a few who are currently doing all they can to keep it that way.

Oh I didn't put this link in - www.bbc.com/news/business-30327717 . Osbourne is denying it all, and saying that anyway the world wouldn't end if he did. Forgetting -or not caring- that for thr poor chap who starved to death it did, and many thousands of others are at risk.

No, I don't trust Dave at all. But he doesn't need TTIP to make the cuts. He can do it entirely on his own locally.

And I do have far more faith in other EU politicians to protect their own healthcare provision.

Here's war on want's booklet on ttip www.waronwant.org/attachments/HILARY_LONDON_FINAL_WEB.pdf.

You'll note it has a chapter about the possibility of job creation. Which the EU itself has admitted won't happen. At a time when jobs are already hard to find, especially well-paid ones, and technology is replacing the low-paid ones. What's current youth unemployment figure like again, I'll have to look it up later, off out right now.