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TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

independent.co.uk

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Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#101

Post by antris »

cperciva wrote: post #29
erhardm wrote: post #21

What really bothers me, as citizen of an european country, why is it possible to have secret deals? If I don't know about such deals how can I call my representative to oppose them? Or encourage them to take the deal if it's a good one. AFAIK, TTIP was leaked and that's the only way european citizens knew about it. Why is it legal? Because all I see is corporations trying to make a sweet deal with governments, and th…

There are no secret trade deals. What there are is closed-door trade negotiations , because it's impossible to get anything done if every time you open your mouth you have street protests from the industries you're considering removing protectionist measures from.

>it's impossible to get anything done if every time you open your mouth you have street protests from the industries you're considering removing protectionist measures from.

I don't understand how the demonstrations are preventing getting anything done?

If it's a small minority protesting, it won't change anything. If it's a mass demonstration, maybe there's a reason for it. Maybe the deal shouldn't be done.

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#102

Post by Silhouette »

DominikR wrote: post #31
erhardm wrote: post #21

What really bothers me, as citizen of an european country, why is it possible to have secret deals? If I don't know about such deals how can I call my representative to oppose them? Or encourage them to take the deal if it's a good one. AFAIK, TTIP was leaked and that's the only way european citizens knew about it. Why is it legal? Because all I see is corporations trying to make a sweet deal with governments, and th…

A trade deal has to be negotiated, and your position as a negotiator improves when you and the other side know that you can follow through on any commitment you make. Therefore it follows that anyone who can negotiate from a position of secrecy or absolute power (dictatorship) is in a better position to achieve his goals during a negotiation. You might laugh at this but I believe this is exactly how the EU commission…

You can certainly place your signature on a document but it means nothing because you can't execute.

But how is this any different from signing a deal that you've happily made in secret, only to find that the people you claimed to represent won't honour that deal because something in it was unacceptable to them and rejecting it in its entirety is the only possible action you've left them that doesn't accept the unacceptable element?

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#103

Post by RodericDay »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73
atmosx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What really bothers me, as citizen of an european country, why is it possible to have secret deals? Indeed. That alone, makes me not want to even take a look at the text and dismiss it right away as negative for the vast amounts of the population.

Imagine building a website for a client, and having them hover around you all the time, 24/7, looking at your screen and going: - Oh, why did you put that button in here? What do you mean "temporary"? - Why are you wasting time browsing that "documentation" site instead of writing code? - What is this "class" thing? We're egalitarian company! - Is this Ruby? Everyone knows websites are best done in PHP! Usually you'd…

These are really bad arguments man. It's like you heard someone defend secrecy once, agreed with them, and are trying to repeat their arguments but in a very confused and unappealing way.

How can you possibly compare the outcome of 10 years of negotiations that get amended a little and then voted Y/N with "a basic prototype"?

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#104

Post by damptowel »

sambe wrote: post #67
cperciva wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no secret trade deals. What there are is closed-door trade negotiations , because it's impossible to get anything done if every time you open your mouth you have street protests from the industries you're considering removing protectionist measures from.

Exactly. Was there actually anything different at all about TTIP negotiations (vs other EU negotiations) until the leaks? I was under the impression that most or all similar documents were only made available at a mature stage (eg after first official draft is ready, passed legal, translated etc).

The issue as I perceive it (because this may have to do with perception of "elites" and the forms of democracy one ascribes to), is that a global deal of this magnitude should be made public and subject to popular democratic influence, simply because it influences so many people. And apparently they were really trying to keep it all hush hush to avoid exactly those kinds of protest. When the news found a way out, the opposition groups pretty much did the publicity campaign for them, of course in a negative way. But would that publicity campaign have started if it had not not leaked? I'm inclined to think that it wouldn't have, because I think economic self-interest and geopolitics are just much more valued than "public rights" by the parties involved, and in that way it's "undemocratic".

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#105

Post by sehr »

antris wrote: post #101
cperciva wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no secret trade deals. What there are is closed-door trade negotiations , because it's impossible to get anything done if every time you open your mouth you have street protests from the industries you're considering removing protectionist measures from.

>it's impossible to get anything done if every time you open your mouth you have street protests from the industries you're considering removing protectionist measures from. I don't understand how the demonstrations are preventing getting anything done? If it's a small minority protesting, it won't change anything. If it's a mass demonstration, maybe there's a reason for it. Maybe the deal shouldn't be done.

I don't understand how the demonstrations are preventing getting anything done?

A fundamental reason as to why we should elect, and delegate to those who do.

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#106

Post by evgen »

Scarblac wrote: post #83
evgen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be because your representative is not a negotiator. They get to approve or reject the deal once it is done, but "people" do not get involved in the negotiation because "people" have a lot of parochial interests and are, as history has taught us, quite ignorant. Sorry if this bothers you, but it is how trade deals have always been done and is how they will always be conducted going forward.

But the flip side is surely that the chance that the whole deal is overthrown by the time legislators finally get to see it becomes a lot bigger. I think they will not be done this way going forward, because these deals took ten years of negotations, and now they fail. It doesn't work anymore.

There is always the possibility of a deal not getting approved, but no trade deal would ever be negotiated in public. The problem with such public negotiation is that instead of a single deal where a country can decide to sacrifice industry X in favor of industry Y you get astroturfing and publicity campaigns from both industry X and industry Y seeking to gain favor in the negotiations. A pre-negotiated package may be a bitter pill to swallow for some, but the alternatives are non-starters; no one is going to bother to negotiate a deal with another country that tries this sort of public horse-trading so asking for the deal to be done in public is no different than simply asking for no deal in the first place.

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#107

Post by colechristensen »

narrowrail wrote: post #78
bobwaycott wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Not at all. Not even in the slightest. This states rights bullshit started in the South as a defensive move to toss a more palatable, quasi-theoretical veneer on what was an unmitigated Southern revolt against the United States because of overt distaste at losing federal support and protection for continuing the practice of slavery. This exposed Southern dependence upon it as a basis for its economy and entire wa…

I'm curious what you think of the "community rights" movement currently underway that is attempting to curtail hydraulic fracturing?

Instead of talking about setting safety and environmental impact boundaries (and allowing everything within them), people are screaming BAN FRACKING. But it gets worse. Instead of talking about banning specific resource extraction methods, people are talking about "community rights", which don't exist.

http://celdf.org/community-rights/

These people are ridiculous. Invoking the American revolution and then railing against "state and federal preemption" which was, in fact, very clearly set out by the Federalists who won most of what they wanted while writing the Constitution.

The states have all rights not explicitly given to the federal government in the constitution. Local communities are given all of their rights by the state. That's it. Trying to change that means burning down the constitution. Communities have no independent rights. They're clearly and deliberately misconstruing history to make woo woo "progressive" arguments.

The basic problem is that the activists are idiots who haven't taken the time or gotten the education to understand the problems they are trying to solve. National attention has no time for complex nuanced arguments, so the only arguments you hear are from fools. This applies to more or less every liberal cause in America, most of which I support in spirit.

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#108

Post by kalleboo »

evgen wrote: post #55
toyg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US elites got used to a very sweet state of things in transatlantic relations post-1989, and it got even better after 9/11. Steamrolling Europeans was almost too easy, because Euroelites had been fully co-opted by the American way. Unfortunately, 13 years of unpopular wars have taken their toll. There are now two generations of politically-active Europeans who were not invested in the Cold War, and see the US fundame…

Possibly. An equally likely situation is that US leadership can see that the EU is falling apart. The UK is already headed out the door, the failure of EU banking and financial institutions given the current massive debt problems, and a collective that seems to only be able to solve their bleak demographic future by pulling in eastern European basket-cases that no one really wants to have in the union makes an EU tra…

TPP negotiations aren't doing too well either... Only Japan seems gung-ho about jumping into that basket.

It's true an Asia deal is probably a bigger deal to the US, but not because Europe is unattractive but rather because they need to get in before China (which would explain why Japan is so eager despite it being unpopular with the citizenry)

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#109

Post by DominikR »

Silhouette wrote: post #102
DominikR wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trade deal has to be negotiated, and your position as a negotiator improves when you and the other side know that you can follow through on any commitment you make. Therefore it follows that anyone who can negotiate from a position of secrecy or absolute power (dictatorship) is in a better position to achieve his goals during a negotiation. You might laugh at this but I believe this is exactly how the EU commission…

You can certainly place your signature on a document but it means nothing because you can't execute. But how is this any different from signing a deal that you've happily made in secret, only to find that the people you claimed to represent won't honour that deal because something in it was unacceptable to them and rejecting it in its entirety is the only possible action you've left them that doesn't accept the unacc…

Well as I see it there are only two possibilities:

a) They let their people vote on it before ratifying the finalised treaty (maybe let them even vote multiple times until the result is right, the EU likes doing that)

b) They know for some reason or another that they will be able to enact it (they control media, the courts and the men with guns which definitely helps)

How is it any different? Well both parties start out a negotiation not knowing what the other sides limits are in certain areas, having society not interfere allows you to not give away this information to the other side.

If the negotiators are acting in the interest of their own people then you could assume that they will know quite well how far they can go.

So hopefully the result of such a negotiation will be a treaty that is acceptable to your population and beneficial in the way you wanted it to be.

My problem is not that there are secret negotiations, but instead that it is an immense uphill battle against mainstream media and politicians to get them not to ratify a treaty they have negotiated.

In most cases they do not allow us to vote on it, and the media acts as if they are directly controlled by politicians. And if they let us vote they'll repeat it indefinitely until they get the result they want as I wrote before.

To me the EU acts like a dictatorship that monitors it's populations closely and responds (only where absolutely necessary and often with lies - see their lies that there definitely wont be an EU army before the Brexit vote) to ensure that they wont revolt. But they certainly have their goals and they try to bring them about no matter what. You cannot vote if you want to achieve this goal, they wont even tell you what their goal or vision exactly entails. (except for some utopian phantasy nonsense, but they've dialled down on that since it is obvious that no one buys it anymore)

Re: TTIP trade deal could be re-launched under a different name, say EU ministers

#110

Post by ajnin »

dash2 wrote: post #59
joelthelion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If negotiations are completely secret, by the time the deal is ready it's too late to debate on the large orientations of the deal. Sorry but a large treaty like this cannot be completely negotiated completely behind closed doors. Negotiators need to deal with it.

One way to solve that would be to have a period in which politicians had to justify their plans, including the kinds of trade deals they would negotiate, to the electorate. Then we could all vote for the politician we preferred. We could call it an "election campaign".

Sounds nice except that politicians are in no way bound by their electoral promises, and they certainly take liberties with them to get elected, and they can't possibly plan for everything that can come up during their terms.
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