Why Trade Deals are Privatising Government
A comment about the negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement between the EU and the US, by Ruth Bergan, Co-ordinator of the Trade Justice Movement, a UK national network that campaigns for socially and environmentally sustainable global trade, that is also an S2B member (…)
Busting the myths of transparency around the EU-US trade deal
From Corporate Europe Observatory – On 7 October, the second round of negotiations for a far-reaching transatlantic trade deal will begin in Brussels. Amidst calls for greater openness and public participation, the European Commission has gone into propaganda mode, promoting myths about the transparency and accountability of the talks. See through its feel-good rhetoric with Corporate Europe Observatory’s myth-busting guide to secrecy, corporate influence and lack of accountability in the transatlantic trade negotiations (…)
US trade officials and EU expectations
“If TTIP is seen as a way for Europe to export its way out of its problems, it won’t have support” said the US Trade Representative Michael B.Froman (…)
U.S.-European Trade and the Corporate Wish Lists
Lori Wallach, quoted in the New York Times, explains why corporations are so actively lobbying to influence EU-US trade talks: “What they consider trade irritants, we consider the most important consumer, health, environmental, privacy, financial stability safeguards on either side of the Atlantic. This is an effort to achieve through trade what that they could not achieve through democratic processes domestically (…)
Trade Secrets – Draft EU documents reveal trade agenda with U.S
Article by Karen Hansen Kuhn, published on http://www.iatp.org/ on July 3, 2013
Transparency and trade negotiations don’t seem to go together these days. Recent revelations in Spiegel disclosed that the U.S. government had been spying on its EU “partners” connected to negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, probably better stated as the Trans Atlantic Free Trade agreement, or TAFTA, which very much rhymes with NAFTA). The French and German governments are outraged, with some parliamentarians calling for a suspension of the talks, slated to start next week in Washington, D.C.
Unfortunately, the only way civil society groups find out about the negotiations are through basically one-way conversations, where we express our concerns to trade officials, or through leaked negotiating documents. One such text came our way over the weekend, a set of position papers summarizing some of the EU’s initial goals on regulatory harmonization, which would be sent to the U.S. ahead of the talks. It includes initial proposals on regulatory issues involving the automotive sector, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, Sanitary and Phytosanitary issues (SPS), competition policy, a proposal for a chapter on trade and sustainable development, trade in raw materials and energy, and an ambitious proposal for cross-cutting disciplines on regulatory issues. It starts out by asserting that, “the TTIP offers a unique chance to give new momentum to the development and implementation of international regulations and standards (multilateral or otherwise plurilateral). This should reduce the risk of countries resorting to unilateral and purely national solutions, leading to regulatory segmentation that could have an adverse effect on international trade and investment.”
Consistent multilateral rules on difficult issues make sense, but let’s make sure trade is put in its place. Rules that provide for a safe workplace, protect public health and the environment, and promote energy and food security have been lost in trade agreements of the past. And the fact is that many advances in standards start at the local level and work their way to the national and, ideally, international levels. The recent votes for GMO labeling in Connecticut and Maine are a good example of this. To be fair, the proposal highlights the “importance of regulatory action to achieve public policy objectives” and states that it should not be used to lower standards in either country. But many regulations on difficult issues such as GMOs, questionable food additives like ractopamine, and emerging technologies such as engineered nano materials in food, need extensive public debate with a bias towards raising standards. The paper proposes steps to increase cooperation among regulatory authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, but makes no mention of public participation in that process. Sadly, the precautionary principle, which is the basis of EU law on many of these issues and is enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon, is entirely absent from the document.
The document also includes a first informal discussion draft, a “non paper,” on public procurement. The EU has expressed its intention in other fora to include procurement commitments at all levels, i.e., including state and municipal governments. That goal is repeated here, along with the aspiration to include procurement commitments in all goods and all sectors. This could mean that programs that support local and sustainable foods, like local farm to school programs, could be on the table in the trade talks. The U.S. has excluded procurement commitments on food from other trade agreements, but it seems that this, along with possible commitments on living wage laws and Buy America programs, could be up for grabs.
Taken together, this agreement and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) would regulate a vast share of global trade. They would undoubtedly set the standards for rules in other bilateral or regional agreements too, and could eventually circle back to set the rules at the WTO. And they matter because, especially in the case of TAFTA, they are not so much about trade in goods and services per se, but about “regulatory cooperation.” That term means a lot of things in different sectors. In our food system, it has the potential to set public health and environmental standards at the lowest possible level in order to resolve pesky “trade irritants” like food safety laws and regulations on new food technologies and questionable food additives.
The new GMO labeling laws, public preference programs for local foods and countless local environmental rules were developed in the light of day and through a vigorous public debate. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has so far shown little inclination to take the trade talks out of the shadows, either during the talks or when the resulting deals go to Congress. Despite leading secret negotiations, it is expected to push for Fast Track negotiating authority this summer, which would limit Congress to an up or down vote on any trade deal (with no amendments) and put strict limits on debate.
In the wake of the spying scandal, EU trade officials are calling for greater transparency in the trade talks, especially on just what information the US obtained. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic should commit to open the talks, and listen to proposals on fair trade and better food systems. Some 34 civil society groups from the U.S. and EU issued this letter last week, calling on trade negotiators to negotiate higher standards or abandon the talks. Other calls for transparency and against unfair provisions on investment, intellectual property rights and energy exports are on the way. That is what really should be on the agenda next week in D.C.
Update: the Transnational Trade and Investment Agreement at the starting line
TTIP Mandate to negotiate with the U.S.A was adopted by the EU Council on 17th June. Trade Ministers of the EU agreed to exclude cultural and audio-visual services from the mandate, but the Commission will be allowed to propose again the issue in a later stage of the negotiation. In spite of the scandals arising for the spying activities of the U.S. secret NSA over European countries, the first round of negotiations is planned for next 8 July 2013 in Washington, DC.
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Seattle to Brussels Network commented the launch of negotiations as follows: EU and US business to profit from the crisis?
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Leaked text of the mandate that allows the Commission to negotiate
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New page of the EC web site on TTIP
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Presidents Barroso and Obama announce launch of TTIP negotiations (video …)
Useful comments/Analysis
Reactions on bugged EU-Facilities – “Meltdown of a democratic state”
The NSA Eavesdropping on an EU representation provoked angry reactions: Negotiations on a free trade agreement between Europe and the U.S. are at risk, according to the CDU. A Green calls even an action before the International Court of Justice.
Hamburg – “Unbearable”, “hateful”, “nobody is safe”: The latest revelations about the spying activities of the U.S. secret NSA care for angry reactions. According to SPIEGEL information, Americans have bugs hidden in the EU representation in Washington and infiltrated the computer network. EU leaders condemn the actions in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE.
“We still need more detailed information,” says Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. “But if that’s true, it’s a huge scandal,” said the SPD politician. “Then that means a huge strain on the relations between the EU and the United States. We now require comprehensive education.”
“If these reports are true, is the abominable,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. “Here are the secretservices apparently out of control., The U.S. should be monitoring their intelligence rather than their allies.” Asselborn spoke of a breach of trust: “Everything is justified by the United States that, you fight terrorism, but the EU and its diplomats are not terrorists, we must get the highest point of a guarantee now that this will cease immediately…”
“The spying has taken on proportions that I have not held by a democratic government possible,” says Elmar Brok, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. “It is intolerable when one behaves with allies like that.” The U.S., which had once been the land of freedom, “are under security syndrome” continues the CDU politician. “They have completely abandoned the proportionality. George Orwell’s nothing against it.”
“It is unacceptable that European diplomats and politicians are spied in their everyday lives,” says Manfred Weber, Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and safety expert. “The confidence is shaking,” said CSU man on.
“Free Trade Agreement with the United States break”
Green MEPs call for far-reaching consequences. “It’s the meltdown of the rule of law,” says Jan Philipp Albrecht, Green Member of the European Parliament. The actions of the NSA was nothing less than “spy against democratic countries and their institutions.” “No one is safe anymore,” outraged politicians, negotiating with the EU Data Protection Regulation for the EU Parliament. The EU must initiate proceedings before the International Court of Justice against the United States, calls Albrecht. The disclosures required “relentless enlightenment”.
Still going on Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the Greens in the European Parliament. “A simple note of protest now not enough anymore,” he says. “The EU must immediately stop the negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Before we even need a data protection agreement, so that such a thing never happens again. Only then can we begin discussions again.”
CDU man Brok’s not quite as far, but the agreement provides at least risk. “How else can you negotiate when you have to worry that their own negotiating position is pre-tapped,” he asks.
The attack on the EU institutions is a further level of spy activities by the NSA. For weeks, details emerge about Prism and other surveillance programs that the whistleblower Snowden has assembled. The British intelligence agency GCHQ will therefore result in a similar program called tempora, be monitored by the world’s telephone and Internet connections.
According to the documents, which SPIEGEL has read, the EU representation has been attacked in like manner as those in Washington at the United Nations. In the NSA document of September 2010, the Europeans are expressly named as an attack target.
The U.S. is silent on the revelations of DER SPIEGEL. “I can not comment on that,” U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said, according to the news agency dpa on Saturday to journalists in Pretoria.
German Source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bild-908570-514792.html
Hamburg – “Unbearable”, “hateful”, “nobody is safe”: The latest revelations about the spying activities of the U.S. secret NSA care for angry reactions. According to SPIEGEL information, Americans have bugs hidden in the EU representation in Washington and infiltrated the computer network. EU leaders condemn the actions in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE.
“We still need more detailed information,” says Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. “But if that’s true, it’s a huge scandal,” said the SPD politician. “Then that means a huge strain on the relations between the EU and the United States. We now require comprehensive education.”
“If these reports are true, is the abominable,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. “Here are the secretservices apparently out of control., The U.S. should be monitoring their intelligence rather than their allies.” Asselborn spoke of a breach of trust: “Everything is justified by the United States that, you fight terrorism, but the EU and its diplomats are not terrorists, we must get the highest point of a guarantee now that this will cease immediately…”
“The spying has taken on proportions that I have not held by a democratic government possible,” says Elmar Brok, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. “It is intolerable when one behaves with allies like that.” The U.S., which had once been the land of freedom, “are under security syndrome” continues the CDU politician. “They have completely abandoned the proportionality. George Orwell’s nothing against it.”
“It is unacceptable that European diplomats and politicians are spied in their everyday lives,” says Manfred Weber, Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and safety expert. “The confidence is shaking,” said CSU man on.
“Free Trade Agreement with the United States break”
Green MEPs call for far-reaching consequences. “It’s the meltdown of the rule of law,” says Jan Philipp Albrecht, Green Member of the European Parliament. The actions of the NSA was nothing less than “spy against democratic countries and their institutions.” “No one is safe anymore,” outraged politicians, negotiating with the EU Data Protection Regulation for the EU Parliament. The EU must initiate proceedings before the International Court of Justice against the United States, calls Albrecht. The disclosures required “relentless enlightenment”.
Still going on Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the Greens in the European Parliament. “A simple note of protest now not enough anymore,” he says. “The EU must immediately stop the negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Before we even need a data protection agreement, so that such a thing never happens again. Only then can we begin discussions again.”
CDU man Brok’s not quite as far, but the agreement provides at least risk. “How else can you negotiate when you have to worry that their own negotiating position is pre-tapped,” he asks.
The attack on the EU institutions is a further level of spy activities by the NSA. For weeks, details emerge about Prism and other surveillance programs that the whistleblower Snowden has assembled. The British intelligence agency GCHQ will therefore result in a similar program called tempora, be monitored by the world’s telephone and Internet connections.
According to the documents, which SPIEGEL has read, the EU representation has been attacked in like manner as those in Washington at the United Nations. In the NSA document of September 2010, the Europeans are expressly named as an attack target.
The U.S. is silent on the revelations of DER SPIEGEL. “I can not comment on that,” U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said, according to the news agency dpa on Saturday to journalists in Pretoria.
German Source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bild-908570-514792.html
Exempting Goods From U.S. Deal Opposed by EU Trade Chief
By Brian Wingfield – May 20, 2013 9:03 PM GMT+0200 on Bloomberg
The European Union’s top trade negotiator said he opposes excluding or carving out categories of goods from an agreement now being negotiated that would create the world’s largest trading region.
“I’m against carve-outs because I believe that when you aim at a comprehensive agreement it should be possible to discuss about everything,” Karel De Gucht, trade commissioner for the 27-nation European Union, said today during an interview for “Bloomberg TV’s MoneyMoves with Deirdre Bolton.”
If concluded, a U.S.-EU accord would create a trading area that would account for almost half of the world’s economic output, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Officials from each side have said they plan to complete negotiations by the end of 2014.
De Gucht in a separate interview said “you would easily lose six months” if the talks aren’t complete by the time the next European Commission takes office in November 2014. “Let’s not speculate about it, because it’s not giving us a lot today,” he said.
Negotiators plan for the bilateral accord to lower tariffs on trade between the partners, which would reduce costs for U.S. exporters including Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) and Boeing Co. (BA) by about $6.4 billion a year, according to a Nov. 2 study from Bloomberg Government. President Barack Obama, EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Barroso on Feb. 13 pledged to pursue a trade agreement.
Important Boost
“If we manage to have an agreement, I’m sure that it would give an important boost to our economies, also to the world economy,” De Gucht said. “I think we would be able to establish, in a lot of domains, norms and standards that become the benchmark worldwide.”
The pact would cover so-called 21st century issues including Internet data-flows, financial services and smaller companies’ access to international markets. The transatlantic trading partners in the past have disagreed over issues including farm subsidies, health and safety rules and regulatory standards that pose a challenge to completing the talks within 18 months.
Disagreements over agricultural trade that have weighed on previous bilateral efforts may bog down discussions, said James Grueff, a former negotiator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Issues including health and farm- and food-safety standards “are not going to be resolved between July of this year and December of 2014,” he said said May 17 at Washington International Trade Association event. “There is a certain disconnect” in saying that these issues are open to negotiation and expecting them to be resolved within the next 18 months, he said.
De Gucht said he isn’t daunted by the scope of the talks.
“Whether it’s too big to succeed, I don’t think so,” De Gucht said. “But it’s certainly too big to fail.”
Chevron calls for strong investor rights chapter in US-EU trade deal; will be able to use CETA to challenge EU policy in meantime
Stuart Trew, Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
U.S. energy giant Chevron (profits $26.2 billion USD) is encouraging the United States to pursue a strong NAFTA-like investment chapter and investor-state dispute settlement process in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union. The company, which attracted global outrage for using these kinds of rules to try to avoid paying an Ecuadorian court-ordered $18-billion penalty for horrific contamination of the Amazonian rainforest, is now calling for “the strongest possible protection” from government measures in Europe that might interfere with its investments.
Chevron makes the comments in a submission to a United States Trade Representative consultation on the proposed TTIP which, if negotiations begin as expected in June, will look much like the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), now in its fourth year of negotiations. The Canada-EU deal will also include an investor-state dispute process that will threaten environmental and public health policies related to big resource projects on both sides of the Atlantic.
This month, the Council of Canadians, Corporate Europe Observatory and Transnational Institute released a report–The Right to say No–on how the investor “rights” chapter in CETA threatens bans or strong regulations on shale gas extraction (fracking) in Europe. The Chevron submission to the USTR justifies our concerns and will likely strengthen European resolve against including these investor protections in either the US or Canadian agreements.
“A strong investment protection regime within the TTIP would allow us and other U.S. businesses to better mitigate the risks associated with large-scale, capital intensive, and long-term projects overseas,” writes Chevron VP Edward Scott in a letter to USTR dated May 7, 2013. “Robust investment protections enable Chevron, and companies like us, to put our capital at risk in order to provide the energy required to fuel economic growth and energy security.”
What he means, of course, is that Chevron doesn’t want to take any risk when it invests in fracking or controversial offshore energy projects in Europe. Providing for the world’s fossil fuel needs (or perpetuating our reliance on dirty oil and gas, depending on your perspective) is a public service, according to the VP. If a community, including countries that are banning fracking for environmental or public health reasons, wants to get in the way of Chevron’s projects, it should have to pay the company for lost business opportunities.
Chevron calls on USTR to make sure the TTIP’s investment provisions:
– “Oblige” the Parties (U.S. and EU, including member states) to “accord fair and equitable treatment to covered investments,” including an obligation “to refrain from undermining legitimate investment-backed expectations.” Translation: if the company’s hopes are dashed–e.g. a future government wants to stop fracking–it should be able to claim it has been treated unfairly under the treaty.
– “Oblige the Parties to accord full protection and security to covered investments,” which European and U.S. legal systems already do (you generally can’t invade a mine or refinery and expect to get away with it). But tribunals have expanded the definition of full security beyond situations where physical property or people are harmed or threatened. For example, in the Biwater vs. Tanzania case related to a water concession, the tribunal said the term “full” protection “implies a State’s guarantee of stability in a secure environment, both physical, commercial and legal,” and that, “It would … be unduly artificial to confine the notion of ‘full security’ only to one aspect of security, particularly in light of the use of this term in a [bilateral investment treaty], directed at the protection of commercial and financial investments.” (Quoted in an International Institute for Sustainable Development report.) Like the fair and equitable treatment rules, this clause includes the “right” to a stable business environment, or for policies to never change over the course of the investment.
– Provide rules on expropriation and the requirement to promptly pay the company when it happens, presumably not just for actual seizure of property or investments but when environmental or other laws or policies have the effect of lowering profit expectations (indirect expropriation), even if the policies are legitimate protection measures that do not discriminate against Chevron.
– Define a covered investment in the treaty “as including both existing and future investments,” which Chevron says “is critical to sectors, such as energy, with a long investment timeline and enormous existing investments.” In other words, the company’s plans down the road should be treated as if they must happen unless the company decides to change them itself. Depending on how the TTIP, or Canada-EU deal for that matter, are worded, this could apply to investments Chevron simply wants to make in Europe but which may be blocked by an EU or member state decision related to what kind of investment it is (e.g. fracking in an environmentally sensitive area).
Chevron concludes its submission on the importance of a strong investor-state dispute process, which it admits “is being challenged by some governments today as an unwarranted infringement on their sovereignty.” Those governments include Australia and a group of Latin American countries who are cooperating to mitigate, reform and possibly replace the current investor-biased model with something that recognizes a community’s right to set policies without fear of multi-billion dollar corporate lawsuits.
With its substantial investments in Canada, Chevron will be able to use any investor-state dispute process in CETA to challenge European fracking bans and other policies that it feels violate the rights mentioned above. It’s one of the reasons more than 70 European, Canadian and Quebec organizations signed a declaration against including these excessive investor “rights” in CETA. The statement concludes:
We will vigorously oppose any transatlantic agreement that compromises our democracies, human and Indigenous rights, and our right to protect our health and the planet. We urge the EU and Canadian governments to follow the lead of the Australian government by stopping the practice of including ISDS in their trade and investment agreements, and to open the door to a broad re-writing of trade and investment policy to balance out corporate interests against the greater public interest.
If CETA does give Chevron and companies like it everything they’re looking for, the U.S. will be under pressure to adopt the CETA investment model in their own TTIP. Though the United States has never lost an investor-state dispute, probably for fear that it would create a backlash against the process, investment arbitrators might be less hesitant when it’s a European firm making the challenge.
To read more about the increasing use of investor-state dispute resolution, and why reform is overdue, see Corporate Europe Observatory and TNI’s recent report, Profiting from Injustice: How law firms, arbitrators and financiers are fuelling an investment arbitration boom.
Trans-Atlantic Rifts: European Activists Could Thwart US-EU Trade Deal
About the EU-USA Free Trade and Investment Deal 