It seems to me that the Wikipedia page is fairly documented and referenced, for an article about a "secret" agreement.
European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is the substance to your claims? The last few years has seen a constant erosion of income both in the USA and Europe. In any case why should trade agreements cede arbitration and disputes to tribunals and panels which are not subject to public scrutiny and proper judicial and democratic oversight?
[deleted]
“Economists estimate that the introduction of the fifth version of Apple’s iPhone delivered a GDP increase up to eight times higher than the projected effect of the TTIP/TAFTA.”
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#43I'm from Belgium, Karel De Gucht (who tried to get ACTA through and the guy who is obviously behind TTIP and CETA also) is also from Belgium, here are some things i know about him or his methods: Investigation for tax fraud and insider trading ( http://goo.gl/wnBN95 ). He is never going to get punished (the judges are his friends). If he sues me about writing this, i'm probably fucked These initiatives are trade agre…
I see no reason to distrust the whole of the EU just because they don't reject Karel De Gucht. After all, if Belgium stands behind him, the EU can't do much. If that isn't satisfying for you, I recommend distrusting the EU Commission. That's what I do. Our best hope is to shoot this thing down when it has to be ratified by the EU parliament. During the last legislative period, the parliament has shown that it can and…
Nobody of the public in Belgium stands behind him, if you understand dutch go to the reactions page of an(y) article about him of a popular Belgian newspaper: http://goo.gl/duj8ml (can't do it with Google Translate (the comments use Ajax), i haven't seen 1 positive reaction ! )
The citizens in a lot of EU countries have massively protested, that's why it got rejected, in Belgium, none of the protests even came in the Belgian media (tv, newspaper, ..) - http://goo.gl/Esg8Bs .
In the letter in my previous post, Karel De Gucht tried to influence the commission, so that they would't reject the proposal solely on the fact that a massive ammount of people emailed/contacted politicians about ACTA (it's cleary mentioned in the letter of Karel De Gucht, asking for the politicians not being influenced by the massive protests http://goo.gl/8AOmSX )
But i distrust the EU commission (not the entire EU), you corrected me on that one
PS. The popular newspaper linked was HLN (het laatste nieuws), but feel free to search any Belgian alternative newspaper :)
PS2. I haven't met anyone in person that thinks Karel De Gucht does a good job. If there is someone who disagrees with me, i'm sorry. But you are probably not from Belgium :)
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#44Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
Some more discussion about this :
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].
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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“Economists estimate that the introduction of the fifth version of Apple’s iPhone delivered a GDP increase up to eight times higher than the projected effect of the TTIP/TAFTA.” http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta
Yeah, the GDP may have increased due to the iPhone - but loads of the profits Apple did ended up in Apple's coffers and not back in circulation...
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#47[deleted]
done is better than perfect
Seriously? This might be true for websites, but not for international legislation that potentially creates legally-binding terms that seriously disadvantage the citizens of one or more of the parties in perpetuity.
For a great example of this see the TPP, currently being negotiated in secret, which will almost certainly force my country (New Zealand) to accept the USA's terms on copyright protection and various other more important terms such as restricting access to generic drugs, raising the cost of healthcare for everyone. These terms benefit no-one except Hollywood and the pharma companies. In this case, done is considerably worse than perfect.
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#48"Public interest" is mostly an excuse for unnecessary statism and senseless regulation of European bureaucrats. European economy is very weak compared to that of US, and proponents of regulations under the guise of "public interest" have zero legitimacy because the results are terrible.
Allowing corporations to free themselves from the shackles of regulation will benefit average citizen of both continents by increasing prosperity and choice. European economy has barely grown for 15 years and these agreements are a welcome development.
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"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.
Most EU countries do not have a US-style ratification process. And local legislation implementing EU directives is usually passed with near-zero scrutiny.
Re: European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA
#50[deleted]
done is better than perfect Seriously? This might be true for websites, but not for international legislation that potentially creates legally-binding terms that seriously disadvantage the citizens of one or more of the parties in perpetuity. For a great example of this see the TPP, currently being negotiated in secret, which will almost certainly force my country (New Zealand) to accept the USA's terms on copyright…
"Done" in this case is also considerably worse than "not done anything at all"! I do wish doing nothing was considered more often as a viable policy.