German economy minister says EU-US trade talks have failed
Source: AP
BERLIN (AP) Germany's economy minister says free trade talks between the European Union and the United States have failed.
Negotiations on the so-called Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, have made little progress in recent years.
Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany's Vice Chancellor, said Sunday that "in my opinion the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it."
He noted that in 14 rounds of talks the two sides haven't agreed on a single common chapter out of 27 chapters being discussed. Gabriel compared the TTIP negotiations unfavorably with a free trade deal forged between the EU and Canada, which he said was fairer for all sides.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/611ff828b5ed44d5ad56ab46e0781e52/german-economy-minister-says-eu-us-trade-talks-have-failed?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)the US side, i.e., if Germany can't reach agreement with the US on trade fairness, it's because US negotiators are attempting to bias the agreement HEAVILY in favor of oligarchic concerns, and Germany's negotiators are really attempting to level the playing field for both labor and corporate interests?
Hate being so cynical, but we've seen this SO many times before, that you have to be naive or foolish not to realize, a priori, these prejudices.
K&R
lark
(23,099 posts)Good for Germany and good for US workers.
Igel
(35,309 posts)TTIP doesn't protect government monopolies on health and water services. You can view them as government monopolies or as ways of having the government protect and provide services to the people without competition. Same diff, different POVs.
TTIP uses the US perspective on food safety. If there's reasonable suspicion something's unsafe, if there's no evidence it's unsafe, then it's often considered safe (esp. if allowed by tradtion or precedent). Europe's precautionary principle says that anything's unsafe unless it's shown to be safe beyond fairly stringent requirements. Oddly, this doesn't always apply to naturally occuring products--you provide a poisonous fruit to market, it's dangerous. You want to market magnesium bicarbonate as a mineral supplement, you have years of regulatory hassle (even though it's going to be perfectly safe). IRCA said glyphosate was probably carcinogenic because of a mismatch between France's "not absolutely proven to not be carcinogenic" and IRCA's definitions, backed by research done by its chair in a former capacity and testified to after the chair stepped down. (Can you say "bias"?)
The US has more stringent banking rules than some European countries. They want our rules loosened. (Some in the US don't want our rules loosened.)
Privacy: negotiators would weaken the provisions in both countries, neither country wants them--but what gets weakened in each side's proposals is different.
Sovereignty. If companies lose money because of a country's policies--which in the US would be shoved under uncompensated taking--then the government can be sued. No government likes having its policies challenged by insignificant, unimportant people like CEOs. In the EU, many large corporations are clearly in bed with the government because that's how their economies went. Volkswagen gets a lot of support because the government can't just "make jobs", it has to let things go well for corporations. The French aerospace industry is the same. The idea of an independent board to adjudicate such things is intolerable and utterly unthinkable. TTIP gives individuals--in this case investors--more ability to challenge governments.
At the same time the Canadian agreement includes the ability of groups to sue over labor, sustainability, and environmental concerns. It's the stick that goes with the carrot, and when implemented between some countries it's fairly meaningless. Between others, it's a cudgel. It's a good idea, the thinking goes, to have an independent body to adjudicate such things. Unfortunately, by "independent" they mean "high level officials from both sides," or something like that, who'll evaluate the concerns from a yet-unnamed "civil society forum." Oh, joy. A committee with real teeth. Not. Notice that again, the idea is that individuals are subservient to "the people," which is to say, the bureaucrats and politicians in the government.
Some of the chapters in TTIP that are unaccepable deal with labor and environment. Most don't. Agreement was reached on not a single chapter, according to the biased, uninvolved, politically astute opposition observer cited in the OP. (Oh, am I veering towards an ad hominem argument? Why, yes I am. Not because he can't make a valid argument, but because there's no special reason to trust his assertions as to the factual basis for his conclusion, and good reasons to distrust them.)
closeupready
(29,503 posts)I'd really need to see the trade deal itself.
Barring that, I do NOT trust US negotiators to protect rights of labor or consumers. And I have 'good reasons to distrust them'.
pampango
(24,692 posts)and environmental concerns."
Of course, to be meaningful such suits must be enforceable over national governments that might say "climate change is a hoax" or "right-to-work" is good labor policy.
AllyCat
(16,187 posts)moondust
(19,981 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Among other shaky assertions, I am very skeptical that "some" or all European countries want US banking rules loosened.
How about some sources Mr. Igel?
He wrote -
"The US has more stringent banking rules than some European countries. They want our rules loosened. (Some in the US don't want our rules loosened.)"
Which European countries are "some"? Who is the "they" that want more looseness? Who are the "some" in the US? What rules are we talking about here.
When I see writing like this, my BS detector goes off majorly.
turbinetree
(24,701 posts)Honk----------------for a political revolution "Our Revolution"
pampango
(24,692 posts)standards. Something tells me that is not what was going to happen. If Germany and France (and many others) can agree on common progressive standards, it is sad that the US cannot just sign on to the same standards.
Sen. Walter Sobchak
(8,692 posts)It's a disgrace this wasn't accomplished fifty years ago.