6 ms·

If this is defeated won't individual deals between each country have to be struck? That seems likely to have a worse outcome for Europe as countries will be pla

If this is defeated won't individual deals between each country have to be struck? That seems likely to have a worse outcome for Europe as countries will be played against each other.

daenney 12y ago
The goal is to stop this in its current form. It's currently being negotiated in secret, which is never a good sign. It's also very likely to once again include all kinds of directives greatly benefitting a few lobbying partners without the EU citizens knowing what's going on until it's too late.
- waps 12y ago
  EU citizens ? Why do they matter ? The EU fought hard to get two legal precedents : 1) that international treaties preceed the constitutions of member states (and any and all other laws). 2) that the European Commission would be allowed to agree to international treaties on behalf of member states. There is nobody that can stop this that isn't already in power and Volcker can push this through without ratification by any kind of elected body. Stopping it can only be done in the United States, where it actually has to pass parliament ("congress"). At least now we know why there is no "democratic" in the "European Union" name.
  - daenney 12y ago
    Sure, it can be pushed through, as could have previous tech-related secret bills. However, they weren't, because so many people and organisations took up arms and fought against it. Just because something might not be a democratic process doesn't mean we can't fight against it and book a win against it.
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      This "process" can't be democratic or undemocratic. The only question can be how far the decision making process is removed from the public. I can understand the rationale for keeping the negotiations largely secret. This is a very big negotiation, and in general, all sorts of demands or proposals are put on the table in the beginning. Many of these proposals have no chance of getting ratified, but they would still be lethal ammunition for any EU-hating party.
  - phtrivier 12y ago
    I beg to differ : as far as I know, the European Commission has been granted a mandate to negociate, but the European Parlement (which represents the EU citizens, however badly/poorly elected it is) will have to ratify it ; then depending on the exact content of the treaty, national parlements might have to ratify it, too. Which does not change the fact that the current way the treaty is negociated is probably too secret.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    You seem to lack a basic understanding of the EU, or democracy in general. Volcker can't "push TTIP through without ratification by any kind of elected body". The elected government, eu parliament, in many cases national parliaments will have a strong voice in ratification. This process isn't undemocratic in the least. It's just that the decisions are complex. I'm not strongly in favour of TTIP in its current form, but the more I know about it, the less I believe all the fear mongering. There seems to be a gut reflex of "I don't understand it, so it must be undemocratic!!"
    - gpvos 12y ago
      Then a democratic entity has the duty to explain and clarify it to its voters. I am seeing next to nothing of that.
      - bayesianhorse 12y ago
        Actually it doesn't. With negotiations that's especially murky, because they are extremely complex and can contain proposals which don't have a chance to go into the agreement. Explanation/Clarification is not something a voter is entitled to. He can demand it, and usually the media is giving it to him, if at all. There is also a very good disincentives for politicians to explain "too much". Essentially, when talking to an audience of millions of people, everything you say can be used against you in a court of public opinion. Everything can and will be understood wrongly. That is also partly why effective politicians aren't particularly eager to "tell the truth".
  - jcfrei 12y ago
    A fundamental critique stems from the following effects of the policy: Companies would be able to demand compensation from countries whose health, financial, environmental and other public interest policies they thought to be undermining their interests, and take governments before extrajudicial tribunals. These tribunals, organised under World Bank and UN rules would have the power to order taxpayers to pay extensive compensation over legislation seen as undermining a company’s “expected future profits”. taken from: http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta . From my understanding this is basically an incentive for national governments to make their (consumer) laws as accordant with each other as possible. One problem I see with this implementation is that this will result in an accordance (of national laws) on the lowest common denominator, ie. the weakest form of consumer protection. In this specific case this would mostly mean levels of consumer protection as seen in the USA and this is in my opinion not in the interest of the general consumer (but that's a discussion of its own).
  - ginko 12y ago
    TTIP would still have to pass the directly elected EP. Juncker, the new head of the commission was also nominated due to his fraction winning the most seats in parliament.
    - waps 12y ago
      Some more discussion about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_Europ... And yes it passes the parliament, however 1) treaties can be adopted without a parliamentary "yes" (has happened many times in the past, because it didn't even used to be asked at all) 2) parliament can say yes or no, but cannot change anything. 3) looking at the contents of previous treaties, it is blatantly obvious that the rules introduced using this instrument would never have passed parliament using other means. An example of this would be, well, and example of this would be TTIP itself, if the contents are what they're rumored to be, which seems like. Other examples include, for example, the copyright directive [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive
  - rmc 12y ago
    > At least now we know why there is no "democratic" in the "European Union" name. Because any country with "Democratic" in the name is usually a totalitarian undemocratic communist dictatorship? :P
  - patrickg 12y ago
    (Germany only, don't know about other states) 1) The national constition is the highest part of the German law, not EU law. The courts cooperate in many ways and co-exist, but EU law is not above the Constition / Grundgesetz. (See for example http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/lexika/177026/grundgesetz-und-eu-recht http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/lexika/177026/grundgesetz-und...) 2) The TTIP has to be ratified by the member states. (See for example http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Service/suche,did=630990.html http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Service/suche,did=630990.html)
- danielweber 12y ago
  "Negotiated in secret" is totally normal in representative democracies. Negotiation involves a lot of give and take, taking positions that you don't actually want in hopes of getting something else, brinkmanship, and trying to come to a meeting of the minds with the other side. Now, the full text should be understood when it's time for things to actually be ratified or signed into law.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Secrecy and trust, like hands-off management, are earned.
  - sentenza 12y ago
    If a treaty of this extent is negotiated in secret and then made public for ratification it _can_ _only_ _fail_ to be accepted. (At least if the democratically elected EU parliament is involved in the acceptance process) This thing changes so many parts of European law that we took decades to agree on, that the effort to make it "fly under the radar" seems comical.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    Most EU countries do not have a US-style ratification process. And local legislation implementing EU directives is usually passed with near-zero scrutiny.
throwaway28974 12y ago
Why? There have been no such deals for the last 20 years and things are working just fine.
- peterclary 12y ago
  Please define "fine", throwaway28974. And for whom?
  - throwaway28974 12y ago
    For everyone, by default. Please give a pair of two EU countries, one of which is better of because it has struck a deal concerning free trade with the United States in the last two decades that was denied to the other country. I'm curious.
    - leccine 12y ago
      You are right. In US there is no good healthcare and this is the most expensive system that provides the least value for an _average_ individual. Education, same. This is what should be exported to the rest of the world? Who are you kidding? The only thing USA could export is guns and dirt bikes.
      - sirkneeland 12y ago
        And in all likelihood the software that powers your smartphone (to say nothing of heavy industry, biotech, higher education... ). If you wanted to mention something that sounds "dumb" you could have at least gone with agriculture and hydrocarbons or something more accurate. I'd say this post is deliberately offensive. More importantly for HN it is simply inaccurate.
Orinocco 12y ago
I agree, could someone please explain why CETA and TTIP are worth stopping? Given that the link doesn't seem to, and I don't have time to watch the press conference.
- touristtam 12y ago
  There is a nicely explained article about the potential threat to democracy that is TTIP: http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta. Incidently techdirt just ran an article on how Bolivia broke their own trade agreement with similar clauses: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140712/10031927860/bolivia-shows-how-to-dismantle-corporate-sovereignty-provisions-treaties-without-losing-foreign-investment.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140712/10031927860/boliv...
  - Orinocco 12y ago
    Thanks, very informative - I see why this is a problem now!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- pizza234 12y ago
  One of the major concerns of the TTIP is the Investor State Dispute Settlements, which allows US investors to be able to sue EU Member States in cases where their investment has been diminished due to regulatory changes made in the public interest (1). This is corporatocracy at its finest. Interesting, the canonical examples have been removed from the Wikipedia TTIP article. The first example is Vattenfall vs. Germany. The former, an energy provider, sued and won against the latter, for the decision to phase out nuclear energy. The second is Philip Morris vs. Australia, because of the decision to require plain packaging on tobacco products. I can't certainly argue against an agreement made against two parties, but the problem here is that TTIP is made in secret, between arguably corrupted representatives of populations which wouldn't certainly agree with such decisions. (1)=I've rephrased this from http://blogg.uio.no/jus/smr/multirights/content/the-ttip-investor-state-dispute-settlement-and-the-future-of-international-investment-law-in http://blogg.uio.no/jus/smr/multirights/content/the-ttip-inv...
walterbell 12y ago
There are many moving parts. One open issue is lawsuits from foreign corporations against national governments. There's a running log here: http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/11/ttip-updates-the-glyn-moody-blogs/index.htm http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/11/tti...
pjc50 12y ago
EU countries cannot make their own bilateral trade agreements.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  And they shouldn't. For one thing this would be an anticompetitive move against the other members, and for another, once you import something into one EU country it's really hard to stop it from going into the other countries. So the EU has to approve the regulation of such an agreements... Otherwise, even without malicious intent on part of a member state, a country like china would just go shopping around the 26 member states and ask who's giving them the best conditions and then do all their trade through them...

If this is defeated won't individual deals between each country have to be struck? That seems likely to have a worse outcome for Europe as countries will be played against each other.

daenney 12y ago

The goal is to stop this in its current form. It's currently being negotiated in secret, which is never a good sign. It's also very likely to once again include all kinds of directives greatly benefitting a few lobbying partners without the EU citizens knowing what's going on until it's too late.

waps 12y ago
EU citizens ? Why do they matter ? The EU fought hard to get two legal precedents : 1) that international treaties preceed the constitutions of member states (and any and all other laws). 2) that the European Commission would be allowed to agree to international treaties on behalf of member states. There is nobody that can stop this that isn't already in power and Volcker can push this through without ratification by any kind of elected body. Stopping it can only be done in the United States, where it actually has to pass parliament ("congress"). At least now we know why there is no "democratic" in the "European Union" name.
- daenney 12y ago
  Sure, it can be pushed through, as could have previous tech-related secret bills. However, they weren't, because so many people and organisations took up arms and fought against it. Just because something might not be a democratic process doesn't mean we can't fight against it and book a win against it.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    This "process" can't be democratic or undemocratic. The only question can be how far the decision making process is removed from the public. I can understand the rationale for keeping the negotiations largely secret. This is a very big negotiation, and in general, all sorts of demands or proposals are put on the table in the beginning. Many of these proposals have no chance of getting ratified, but they would still be lethal ammunition for any EU-hating party.
- phtrivier 12y ago
  I beg to differ : as far as I know, the European Commission has been granted a mandate to negociate, but the European Parlement (which represents the EU citizens, however badly/poorly elected it is) will have to ratify it ; then depending on the exact content of the treaty, national parlements might have to ratify it, too. Which does not change the fact that the current way the treaty is negociated is probably too secret.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  You seem to lack a basic understanding of the EU, or democracy in general. Volcker can't "push TTIP through without ratification by any kind of elected body". The elected government, eu parliament, in many cases national parliaments will have a strong voice in ratification. This process isn't undemocratic in the least. It's just that the decisions are complex. I'm not strongly in favour of TTIP in its current form, but the more I know about it, the less I believe all the fear mongering. There seems to be a gut reflex of "I don't understand it, so it must be undemocratic!!"
  - gpvos 12y ago
    Then a democratic entity has the duty to explain and clarify it to its voters. I am seeing next to nothing of that.
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      Actually it doesn't. With negotiations that's especially murky, because they are extremely complex and can contain proposals which don't have a chance to go into the agreement. Explanation/Clarification is not something a voter is entitled to. He can demand it, and usually the media is giving it to him, if at all. There is also a very good disincentives for politicians to explain "too much". Essentially, when talking to an audience of millions of people, everything you say can be used against you in a court of public opinion. Everything can and will be understood wrongly. That is also partly why effective politicians aren't particularly eager to "tell the truth".
- jcfrei 12y ago
  A fundamental critique stems from the following effects of the policy: Companies would be able to demand compensation from countries whose health, financial, environmental and other public interest policies they thought to be undermining their interests, and take governments before extrajudicial tribunals. These tribunals, organised under World Bank and UN rules would have the power to order taxpayers to pay extensive compensation over legislation seen as undermining a company’s “expected future profits”. taken from: http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta . From my understanding this is basically an incentive for national governments to make their (consumer) laws as accordant with each other as possible. One problem I see with this implementation is that this will result in an accordance (of national laws) on the lowest common denominator, ie. the weakest form of consumer protection. In this specific case this would mostly mean levels of consumer protection as seen in the USA and this is in my opinion not in the interest of the general consumer (but that's a discussion of its own).
- ginko 12y ago
  TTIP would still have to pass the directly elected EP. Juncker, the new head of the commission was also nominated due to his fraction winning the most seats in parliament.
  - waps 12y ago
    Some more discussion about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_Europ... And yes it passes the parliament, however 1) treaties can be adopted without a parliamentary "yes" (has happened many times in the past, because it didn't even used to be asked at all) 2) parliament can say yes or no, but cannot change anything. 3) looking at the contents of previous treaties, it is blatantly obvious that the rules introduced using this instrument would never have passed parliament using other means. An example of this would be, well, and example of this would be TTIP itself, if the contents are what they're rumored to be, which seems like. Other examples include, for example, the copyright directive [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive
- rmc 12y ago
  > At least now we know why there is no "democratic" in the "European Union" name. Because any country with "Democratic" in the name is usually a totalitarian undemocratic communist dictatorship? :P
- patrickg 12y ago
  (Germany only, don't know about other states) 1) The national constition is the highest part of the German law, not EU law. The courts cooperate in many ways and co-exist, but EU law is not above the Constition / Grundgesetz. (See for example http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/lexika/177026/grundgesetz-und-eu-recht http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/lexika/177026/grundgesetz-und...) 2) The TTIP has to be ratified by the member states. (See for example http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Service/suche,did=630990.html http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Service/suche,did=630990.html)
danielweber 12y ago
"Negotiated in secret" is totally normal in representative democracies. Negotiation involves a lot of give and take, taking positions that you don't actually want in hopes of getting something else, brinkmanship, and trying to come to a meeting of the minds with the other side. Now, the full text should be understood when it's time for things to actually be ratified or signed into law.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Secrecy and trust, like hands-off management, are earned.
- sentenza 12y ago
  If a treaty of this extent is negotiated in secret and then made public for ratification it _can_ _only_ _fail_ to be accepted. (At least if the democratically elected EU parliament is involved in the acceptance process) This thing changes so many parts of European law that we took decades to agree on, that the effort to make it "fly under the radar" seems comical.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Most EU countries do not have a US-style ratification process. And local legislation implementing EU directives is usually passed with near-zero scrutiny.

throwaway28974 12y ago

Why? There have been no such deals for the last 20 years and things are working just fine.

peterclary 12y ago
Please define "fine", throwaway28974. And for whom?
- throwaway28974 12y ago
  For everyone, by default. Please give a pair of two EU countries, one of which is better of because it has struck a deal concerning free trade with the United States in the last two decades that was denied to the other country. I'm curious.
  - leccine 12y ago
    You are right. In US there is no good healthcare and this is the most expensive system that provides the least value for an _average_ individual. Education, same. This is what should be exported to the rest of the world? Who are you kidding? The only thing USA could export is guns and dirt bikes.
    - sirkneeland 12y ago
      And in all likelihood the software that powers your smartphone (to say nothing of heavy industry, biotech, higher education... ). If you wanted to mention something that sounds "dumb" you could have at least gone with agriculture and hydrocarbons or something more accurate. I'd say this post is deliberately offensive. More importantly for HN it is simply inaccurate.

Orinocco 12y ago

I agree, could someone please explain why CETA and TTIP are worth stopping? Given that the link doesn't seem to, and I don't have time to watch the press conference.

touristtam 12y ago
There is a nicely explained article about the potential threat to democracy that is TTIP: http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta. Incidently techdirt just ran an article on how Bolivia broke their own trade agreement with similar clauses: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140712/10031927860/bolivia-shows-how-to-dismantle-corporate-sovereignty-provisions-treaties-without-losing-foreign-investment.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140712/10031927860/boliv...
- Orinocco 12y ago
  Thanks, very informative - I see why this is a problem now!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
pizza234 12y ago
One of the major concerns of the TTIP is the Investor State Dispute Settlements, which allows US investors to be able to sue EU Member States in cases where their investment has been diminished due to regulatory changes made in the public interest (1). This is corporatocracy at its finest. Interesting, the canonical examples have been removed from the Wikipedia TTIP article. The first example is Vattenfall vs. Germany. The former, an energy provider, sued and won against the latter, for the decision to phase out nuclear energy. The second is Philip Morris vs. Australia, because of the decision to require plain packaging on tobacco products. I can't certainly argue against an agreement made against two parties, but the problem here is that TTIP is made in secret, between arguably corrupted representatives of populations which wouldn't certainly agree with such decisions. (1)=I've rephrased this from http://blogg.uio.no/jus/smr/multirights/content/the-ttip-investor-state-dispute-settlement-and-the-future-of-international-investment-law-in http://blogg.uio.no/jus/smr/multirights/content/the-ttip-inv...

walterbell 12y ago

There are many moving parts. One open issue is lawsuits from foreign corporations against national governments. There's a running log here: http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/11/ttip-updates-the-glyn-moody-blogs/index.htm http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/11/tti...

pjc50 12y ago

EU countries cannot make their own bilateral trade agreements.

bayesianhorse 12y ago
And they shouldn't. For one thing this would be an anticompetitive move against the other members, and for another, once you import something into one EU country it's really hard to stop it from going into the other countries. So the EU has to approve the regulation of such an agreements... Otherwise, even without malicious intent on part of a member state, a country like china would just go shopping around the 26 member states and ask who's giving them the best conditions and then do all their trade through them...