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TTIP Documents Revealed

international.sueddeutsche.de

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Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#41

Post by richmarr »

Symbiote wrote: post #27
cmarschner wrote: post #12

The estimated benefit of TTIP is 400,000 jobs and 0.5% GDP for the EU. Not much. Apparently, the few selected MoP in Germany who were given access to the drafts had a few hours to look at a 1000+ pages, in English legalese, with a dictionary but no internet access. Apparently, the drafts were full of certain spelling errors. The assumption was that they were personalized and injected on purpose such that photographs…

What would those MPs lose if they leaked the text? It seems like a vote-winning action...

My guess would be that they'd be gently shunned, so would probably be weighing up the relative merit of some (possibly short term) popularity against longer term merit of being able to effectively collaborate with party & peers.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#42

Post by lumberjack »

Symbiote wrote: post #27
cmarschner wrote: post #12

The estimated benefit of TTIP is 400,000 jobs and 0.5% GDP for the EU. Not much. Apparently, the few selected MoP in Germany who were given access to the drafts had a few hours to look at a 1000+ pages, in English legalese, with a dictionary but no internet access. Apparently, the drafts were full of certain spelling errors. The assumption was that they were personalized and injected on purpose such that photographs…

What would those MPs lose if they leaked the text? It seems like a vote-winning action...

They would probably be chastised by their respective parties.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#43

Post by pas »

inDigiNeous wrote: post #18
auganov wrote: post #15

That overzealous secrecy around TTIP is a shame. It doesn't look like such a bad piece of legislation. The overall theme seems to be some deregulation on EU side (as generally EU is the over-regulated side) and bringing regulatory standards closer together. The IP protections are the most concerning part so far IMO? I don't know much about that kind of negotiations, the secrecy might as well be the right strategy to…

The most alarming features of this proposed legislation are the facts that it contains this: ".. it also contains an ‘investor protection’ provision allowing corporations to effectively sue governments for taking action to harm their business." (source: http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2016/02/ttip-... ) So .. effectively, this could mean that a corporation could overrule a government in legislation if…

Okay, first of all, that's bullshit.

ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) is a sane concept. The implementation might have problems (for example closed courtroom "trials"), but it's not about protecting profits. It's about protecting equality and fairness for all before the law, and in case of States, holding them accountable to make fair and egalitarian laws.

What's the typical example? A random Company invests in a country, sets up a nice subsidiary starts doing business, everything is legal. But the country (the State) sees that it's taking up the market, uh-oh,

a) better make a law against whatever they are doing, or b) better make a law against (that specific or all) foreign companies doing whatever.

Which one(s) is (are) problematic?

Also, the other thing, fairness, comes in when a State wants to buy out a company but doesn't want to pay market price. Basically eminent domain without unfair compensation.

The same goes for ending tax breaks (or other investment incentives) sooner than promised. Because that's a breach of agreement.

Your link (publicfinanceinternational.org) refers an article from globaljustice.co.uk which has a list of problematic ISDS arbitration cases, that's the real data, anything else is just fluff. ( http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/re... )

Let's look at the big bully US agribusiness vs Mexico (the rules of arbitration are set by NAFTA).

http://www.state.gov/s/l/c42198.htm

http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/ita... the concrete "award" (findings of the tribunal).

It turns out that these tribunals are looking at laws and apply them. Like courts. And they are much likely more objective than any court in either host country. And then that award was reviewed by the courts of a place chosen by the parties (the Ontario court system).

Seems quite like due process to me.

I'm not saying all of the cases are jolly good and there was absolutely no problematic awards, but just looking at the Vodafone vs India one, the "retrospective capital gains tax" hits us and makes you wonder, what the fuck were the Indians thinking, first rule of how to legislate. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty )

But enough on ISDS. There are big problems with TTIP, but not this one.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#44

Post by skrause »

zavi wrote: post #24
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #17

> The U.S. government concurrently has criticized the fundamental prevention principal of the EU Consumer Centre which protects 500 million Europeans from consuming genetically modified food and hormone-treated meat. Good for the EU. If only our government showed the same care for its own citizens.

> The U.S., for example, demands that statutory prohibitions on products to protect human health should only be allowed to be passed if it has been scientifically proven that these products really are harmful. Sounds like a reasonable argument.

In a way the US is regulated by a high risk of expensive lawsuits with really high amounts of compensation if they harm someone. So a company will not release a product that might be harmful because they could end up paying hundreds of million dollars of compensation to harmed people.

These kinds of lawsuits don't exist in Europe, in the worst case a company will pay $10,000 to a single person. But there are other protections in place and if you take those away you will end up with much worse protection than the US has because this indirect regulation doesn't exist.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#45

Post by pas »

jakub_g wrote: post #34
toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue with the TTIP; thanks for calling it out.

And if someone thinks this is a virtual threat, google for "Philip Morris vs. (Australia|Uruguay)" (countries being sued for anti-tobacco regulations hurting business of PM)

That's a frivolous suit. They are grasping at straws.

http://theconversation.com/big-tobacco-vs-australia-philip-m...

Yes, it's a virtual threat.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#46

Post by pas »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23
inDigiNeous wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most alarming features of this proposed legislation are the facts that it contains this: ".. it also contains an ‘investor protection’ provision allowing corporations to effectively sue governments for taking action to harm their business." (source: http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2016/02/ttip-... ) So .. effectively, this could mean that a corporation could overrule a government in legislation if…

My biggest issue with the TTIP; thanks for calling it out.

Then you should read up on it, because it's basically the least problematic part of TTIP. ( here's a comment I just wrote trying to explain why people are mistaken about the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11608281 )

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#47

Post by green7ea »

zavi wrote: post #24
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #17

> The U.S. government concurrently has criticized the fundamental prevention principal of the EU Consumer Centre which protects 500 million Europeans from consuming genetically modified food and hormone-treated meat. Good for the EU. If only our government showed the same care for its own citizens.

> The U.S., for example, demands that statutory prohibitions on products to protect human health should only be allowed to be passed if it has been scientifically proven that these products really are harmful. Sounds like a reasonable argument.

Science isn't math, it can't prove anything. What it does is reduce uncertainties more and more until we become confident that it's likely to be right.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#48

Post by pas »

jakub_g wrote: post #35
Symbiote wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't they exactly what was wanted, to stop big companies like Amazon from taking advantage of the tax system (invoice everything in Luxembourg) that aren't practical for small businesses? Or, to prevent foreign online retailers from undercutting local ones simply through lower "local" taxation rates.

In theory the laws are great. But they should be applied over a certain revenue threshold, say €1M. They're a mess for someone selling a few items per month to customers all around Europe (like selling an ebook on your own website).

Can you link to more details about this?

As far as I know the VAT law applies only to service providers (like Skype, and AWS) and you can easily file taxes through the mini one-shop-stop way ( http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/tax/articles/eu-201... - chose an EU Member State, I recommend Ireland, their online thingie seems to be okay ).

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#49

Post by Silhouette »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #10
Aelinsaar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that they will. The Brits at least don't seem to be interested in presenting their nethers for this chopping block.

The UK government is one of the most pro-TTIP in the EU, unfortunately.

And now you know why it's mostly being negotiated in secret. The NHS is basically the third rail of British politics. If you want to know what happens when a government tries a little too hard to undermine it, look at any of our newspapers from last Tuesday or Wednesday. If you want to know what happens when a government mounts an all-out attack on it, look up "political annihilation for at least a generation" in your dictionary of choice. The Liberal Democrats basically got wiped out as a force in British politics in a single election last time, and much of that was because of how they mishandled one sensitive issue several years earlier. Trying to force NHS privatisation and allow foreign companies to literally sue future British governments who sought to undo any resulting damage would make the tuition fees mess that brought down the Lib Dems look like a warm-up act.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#50

Post by mikemoka »

pas wrote: post #43
inDigiNeous wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most alarming features of this proposed legislation are the facts that it contains this: ".. it also contains an ‘investor protection’ provision allowing corporations to effectively sue governments for taking action to harm their business." (source: http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2016/02/ttip-... ) So .. effectively, this could mean that a corporation could overrule a government in legislation if…

Okay, first of all, that's bullshit. ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) is a sane concept. The implementation might have problems (for example closed courtroom "trials"), but it's not about protecting profits. It's about protecting equality and fairness for all before the law, and in case of States, holding them accountable to make fair and egalitarian laws. What's the typical example? A random Company invests…

"A random Company invests in a country, sets up a nice subsidiary starts doing business, everything is legal. But the country (the State) sees that it's taking up the market, uh-oh,"

when this has been done and when it has happened not in the interest of public well being? on the other hand here is an example of what some corporations actually do in the present https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=6m54s

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