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Yeah. Make them public. Every populist party in every member state would have a wonderful time catering to tin foil hats and making everyone with half a clue mi

Yeah. Make them public. Every populist party in every member state would have a wonderful time catering to tin foil hats and making everyone with half a clue miserable. This is not how negotiations work. You don't make preliminary talks public. Many of the things in those talks are outrageous and no one believes they will be in the final draft. It's how you negotiate. You ask for X, then the opposing side tells you no, BUT if you manage to do Y, then we can do a scaled back version of X. You tell them no, BUT if they do X and Z, you will make Y happen. All sides make concessions and sh... stuff gets done. Making the above process public will tie the negotiators hands.

sdoering 11y ago
Why not. If I can argue as a leading party, that my populous would never consent to this or that feature of the treaty, I gain enormous leverage. And seen another way. If any majority of people inside a democracy does not want to have a feature it is the politicians job to listen to the people and do their bidding. Politicians are there to server the people not to rule them.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  You have time for that. After the draft is published. People are saying that this is NEGOTIATED in private. Which is how negotiations work. What will be proposed as a draft depends on many variables. Accepting the draft and making it into laws takes many steps, the final one being approval from every member's parliament.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    We don't have time for that in the USA, for the TPP, which seems analogous to the TTIP. Our "representatives" will get one vote, up or down, on the entire TPP, no debate. During TPP "negotiations", corporations got access to the drafts. It wasn't negotiated strictly in private. Corporations are the only stakeholders, and US citizens have had zero say.
  - sdoering 11y ago
    Well I do not see, why corporations then get an early say in the "negotiations" when the people are not able to do so via their elected representatives. Because, as you can clearly see, my representative might have the right to read some of it, but he has no right to alter the "negotiations". The people negotiating on my behalf are so far removed from my actual vote, that I could not possible call this democratic. So no, when the final draft is released, we will have the european parliament get some short amount of time (easily too short to really grasp implications), no real debate, but a fast vote. Then this will have to be implemented into national laws (without another parliamentarian debate on a national basis). Let's see, what you have to say then in regards to this process.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      I say there is enough time, you say there isn't. What is left to say?
      - sdoering 11y ago
        Wow. What an elaborate argument. How grown up. Someone could label your statement as a kille phrase. I now see how you do "discourse" and can understand why you do not fear TTIP "discourse". As yours and the so called "discourse" are equally non existent and on the same level. Please. I beg you to refrain from an answer, as I write this just for the afterworld. I do not try to feed you, the troll.
        TheLogothete 11y ago
        It is pretty ignorant to label someone as troll because you do not agree with him. And just FYI, this style of "discourse" is exactly the reason why TTIP negotiations should not be made public. A politician can rip apart through all the logic here and the public will eat it up.
RodericDay 11y ago
Human inventiveness is infinite, can take us to the moon and land supercomputers in our hands... but apparently making smart business and transparent democracy compatible is just too damn difficult.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  Human stupidity is infinite, not our inventiveness. Einstein's words, not mine.
  - striking 11y ago
    So you accept oligarchial rule because you don't trust your fellow man? What a sad world you live in.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      How did you come with this dichotomy?
  - dalke 11y ago
    He probably didn't say that. As http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/ points out, the original saying was attributed to a "great astronomer", then followed by "To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited." These later got merged. In any case, you are making a fallacious argument from authority. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Appeal_to_non-authorities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Appeal... : > A common example of the fallacy is appealing to an authority in one subject to pontificate on another - for example citing Albert Einstein as an authority on religion when his expertise was in physics.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      In fact, I don't care that Einstein told it. Or didn't. I quoted it because it sums my thesis pretty well. People are very, very stupid. You cannot count on them not being swayed by some pretty words and blowing the whole treaty out of the water with some misguided protests. Perhaps if you frequent HN, you don't know how stupid people are, because you only talk to the the smartest 10%.
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
>This is not how negotiations work. You mean it's not how oligarchs want it to work. Proponents of unpopular policy proposals want to govern people, but they don't want to have to explain themselves to the people they propose to govern. >You don't make preliminary talks public. Just because it doesn't always happen, does not mean that it never happens, shouldn't happen, or can't happen. >Making the above process public will tie the negotiators hands. Which is the point of democratic processes. It is exactly what people want. I'm not sure what they're worried about anyway, in the US the proletariat has been convinced to go along with all manner of political and economic policy that goes against their best interests; they beg for more of it.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  It worked almost like that in the USA with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Text of the TPP totally kept secret, even from the US Senate and House. Before our "representatives" got a chance to read the treaty, someone forced a vote on trade authority. Now, there's a short period to read a long treaty, which is being changed by the "legal scrub" process, and there's one opportunity to vote on it, no debate on the provisions, very little debate overall. In short, TPP is getting rammed through in the USA. All objections are getting overridden, hard.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Well, that's the least charitable way to frame it. A more accurate way to frame it: * The United States Congress does not really get line-item veto on giant international trade agreements that affect dozens of countries, all of whom also must ratify the treaty. * Trade promotion authority is simply the authorization for the administration to negotiate the treaty. * By the time TPP is ratified by Congress at the end of 2016, it will have been public for over a year, and we'll have change-bars for the "legal scrub" stuff Techdirt is so worried about. My real objection to US concern over TPP is that TPP has minimal impact on US domestic law. If you're a New Zealander, or, worse, Vietnamese, I totally understand how the TPP is problematic. The idea that a treaty that mostly serves to normalize global trade rules around the ones already in place in the US has been "rammed through in the USA" seems pretty arrogant to me.
Silhouette 11y ago
This "negotiations must be secret to work" principle seems an odd argument to make. In the UK, for example, our national laws go through several stages of development in Parliament. Over the course of many months or years there will often be thousands of comments contributed by MPs, Lords, civil servants, independent subject matter experts, special interest groups, and the general public. There are no draconian restrictions on seeing or discussing the work in progress of the kind we're talking about here. No-one is wearing tin foil hats. No-one is spending their entire working lifetime fending off crazy theories from everyone with half a clue. And yet, as you say, stuff still gets done.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  You are comparing domestic and international legislation...
  - c0ur7n3y 11y ago
    What is international legislation?
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    No, I'm demonstrating that if an entire programme of complex proposals can routinely become law after open debate among thousands of participants with often conflicting views and preferences, the idea that a single trade agreement can't be hammered out without resorting to secrecy and subterfuge by a small group of mostly unidentified participants is absurd.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      It is a very different playing field. In one case you have agenda for the UK, in the other you have for the UK and Romania. Local forces will escalate the tension and break up all talks.
      - Silhouette 11y ago
        And yet, again, we have both bilateral and multilateral negotiations going on all the time in international relations, without the same level of controversy that the likes of TPP and TTIP have attracted. Discussions in the UN about issues as big as imposing sanctions or going to war have taken place with more transparency than we're seeing here. National politicians who have defied public opinion on such matters have sometimes paid a heavy price for it at the next elections. I mean, seriously, we're talking about a bilateral trade deal here, not the fate of humanity. Yes, each party has some internal political structure and local variations, but the point of both the EU and the US is to have regulated, harmonious local variations so the whole can still function effectively. Please tell me, if everything is above board, what is so secret about this kind of a deal that it justifies obstructing not only the public but their elected representatives from watching it develop? For that matter, why should those elected representatives not then block the entire thing on principle, if they are only to be asked to rubber stamp the results without substantial scrutiny or a meaningful opportunity to actually represent the interests of their electorates?

sdoering 11y ago

Why not. If I can argue as a leading party, that my populous would never consent to this or that feature of the treaty, I gain enormous leverage. And seen another way. If any majority of people inside a democracy does not want to have a feature it is the politicians job to listen to the people and do their bidding. Politicians are there to server the people not to rule them.

TheLogothete 11y ago
You have time for that. After the draft is published. People are saying that this is NEGOTIATED in private. Which is how negotiations work. What will be proposed as a draft depends on many variables. Accepting the draft and making it into laws takes many steps, the final one being approval from every member's parliament.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  We don't have time for that in the USA, for the TPP, which seems analogous to the TTIP. Our "representatives" will get one vote, up or down, on the entire TPP, no debate. During TPP "negotiations", corporations got access to the drafts. It wasn't negotiated strictly in private. Corporations are the only stakeholders, and US citizens have had zero say.
- sdoering 11y ago
  Well I do not see, why corporations then get an early say in the "negotiations" when the people are not able to do so via their elected representatives. Because, as you can clearly see, my representative might have the right to read some of it, but he has no right to alter the "negotiations". The people negotiating on my behalf are so far removed from my actual vote, that I could not possible call this democratic. So no, when the final draft is released, we will have the european parliament get some short amount of time (easily too short to really grasp implications), no real debate, but a fast vote. Then this will have to be implemented into national laws (without another parliamentarian debate on a national basis). Let's see, what you have to say then in regards to this process.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    I say there is enough time, you say there isn't. What is left to say?
    - sdoering 11y ago
      Wow. What an elaborate argument. How grown up. Someone could label your statement as a kille phrase. I now see how you do "discourse" and can understand why you do not fear TTIP "discourse". As yours and the so called "discourse" are equally non existent and on the same level. Please. I beg you to refrain from an answer, as I write this just for the afterworld. I do not try to feed you, the troll.
      - TheLogothete 11y ago
        It is pretty ignorant to label someone as troll because you do not agree with him. And just FYI, this style of "discourse" is exactly the reason why TTIP negotiations should not be made public. A politician can rip apart through all the logic here and the public will eat it up.

RodericDay 11y ago

Human inventiveness is infinite, can take us to the moon and land supercomputers in our hands... but apparently making smart business and transparent democracy compatible is just too damn difficult.

TheLogothete 11y ago
Human stupidity is infinite, not our inventiveness. Einstein's words, not mine.
- striking 11y ago
  So you accept oligarchial rule because you don't trust your fellow man? What a sad world you live in.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    How did you come with this dichotomy?
- dalke 11y ago
  He probably didn't say that. As http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/ points out, the original saying was attributed to a "great astronomer", then followed by "To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited." These later got merged. In any case, you are making a fallacious argument from authority. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Appeal_to_non-authorities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Appeal... : > A common example of the fallacy is appealing to an authority in one subject to pontificate on another - for example citing Albert Einstein as an authority on religion when his expertise was in physics.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    In fact, I don't care that Einstein told it. Or didn't. I quoted it because it sums my thesis pretty well. People are very, very stupid. You cannot count on them not being swayed by some pretty words and blowing the whole treaty out of the water with some misguided protests. Perhaps if you frequent HN, you don't know how stupid people are, because you only talk to the the smartest 10%.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

>This is not how negotiations work. You mean it's not how oligarchs want it to work. Proponents of unpopular policy proposals want to govern people, but they don't want to have to explain themselves to the people they propose to govern. >You don't make preliminary talks public. Just because it doesn't always happen, does not mean that it never happens, shouldn't happen, or can't happen. >Making the above process public will tie the negotiators hands. Which is the point of democratic processes. It is exactly what people want. I'm not sure what they're worried about anyway, in the US the proletariat has been convinced to go along with all manner of political and economic policy that goes against their best interests; they beg for more of it.

bediger4000 11y ago
It worked almost like that in the USA with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Text of the TPP totally kept secret, even from the US Senate and House. Before our "representatives" got a chance to read the treaty, someone forced a vote on trade authority. Now, there's a short period to read a long treaty, which is being changed by the "legal scrub" process, and there's one opportunity to vote on it, no debate on the provisions, very little debate overall. In short, TPP is getting rammed through in the USA. All objections are getting overridden, hard.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Well, that's the least charitable way to frame it. A more accurate way to frame it: * The United States Congress does not really get line-item veto on giant international trade agreements that affect dozens of countries, all of whom also must ratify the treaty. * Trade promotion authority is simply the authorization for the administration to negotiate the treaty. * By the time TPP is ratified by Congress at the end of 2016, it will have been public for over a year, and we'll have change-bars for the "legal scrub" stuff Techdirt is so worried about. My real objection to US concern over TPP is that TPP has minimal impact on US domestic law. If you're a New Zealander, or, worse, Vietnamese, I totally understand how the TPP is problematic. The idea that a treaty that mostly serves to normalize global trade rules around the ones already in place in the US has been "rammed through in the USA" seems pretty arrogant to me.

Silhouette 11y ago

This "negotiations must be secret to work" principle seems an odd argument to make. In the UK, for example, our national laws go through several stages of development in Parliament. Over the course of many months or years there will often be thousands of comments contributed by MPs, Lords, civil servants, independent subject matter experts, special interest groups, and the general public. There are no draconian restrictions on seeing or discussing the work in progress of the kind we're talking about here. No-one is wearing tin foil hats. No-one is spending their entire working lifetime fending off crazy theories from everyone with half a clue. And yet, as you say, stuff still gets done.

TheLogothete 11y ago
You are comparing domestic and international legislation...
- c0ur7n3y 11y ago
  What is international legislation?
- Silhouette 11y ago
  No, I'm demonstrating that if an entire programme of complex proposals can routinely become law after open debate among thousands of participants with often conflicting views and preferences, the idea that a single trade agreement can't be hammered out without resorting to secrecy and subterfuge by a small group of mostly unidentified participants is absurd.
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    It is a very different playing field. In one case you have agenda for the UK, in the other you have for the UK and Romania. Local forces will escalate the tension and break up all talks.
    - Silhouette 11y ago
      And yet, again, we have both bilateral and multilateral negotiations going on all the time in international relations, without the same level of controversy that the likes of TPP and TTIP have attracted. Discussions in the UN about issues as big as imposing sanctions or going to war have taken place with more transparency than we're seeing here. National politicians who have defied public opinion on such matters have sometimes paid a heavy price for it at the next elections. I mean, seriously, we're talking about a bilateral trade deal here, not the fate of humanity. Yes, each party has some internal political structure and local variations, but the point of both the EU and the US is to have regulated, harmonious local variations so the whole can still function effectively. Please tell me, if everything is above board, what is so secret about this kind of a deal that it justifies obstructing not only the public but their elected representatives from watching it develop? For that matter, why should those elected representatives not then block the entire thing on principle, if they are only to be asked to rubber stamp the results without substantial scrutiny or a meaningful opportunity to actually represent the interests of their electorates?