
EU dropped plans for safer pesticides because of TTIP and pressure from US - de_Selby
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/eu-dropped-plans-for-safer-pesticides-because-of-ttip-and-pressure-from-us/
======
tzs
See also extensive discussion from 2 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772)

That was a submission from a different publication, though.

~~~
de_Selby
Apologies, I completely missed that discussion.

~~~
po
No need to apologize, frankly this needs a lot more discussion than it's
probably going to get.

------
Maarten88
To me this whole TTIP feels like the US trying to bundle and export their most
profitable corporate lobbying results through the corrupt and payed-for US
politicians to the EU. Secret negotiations, state-investor dispute, all of
this seems organized to help big corporations screw consumers further.

I simply hope the whole thing fails, I really don't see the benefit to me.

~~~
mercurial
I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree
that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the
expense of consumers.

~~~
Brakenshire
Yes, there's no need to make the US the bad guy.

The key point is the way in which a treaty like this puts a whole class of
what would once have been domestic legislation beyond the reach of democratic
decision-making. Both in the treaties themselves, and their transnational
private courts.

~~~
_yosefk
Can't a democratic decision be made to get out of the treaty? Also -
international obligations in general, by their nature, restrict democratic or
any other kind of sovereign decision-making. Decisions such as waging war,
defaulting on debt, etc. which are often made by sovereigns illustrate that
restrictions on sovereigns aren't necessarily bad.

(Not saying that TTIP is a good thing, just that I'm a bit baffled by the
framing of the problems with it as a conflict between democracy and
corporations or such. I'm even more baffled by the framing of defaulting on
sovereign debt as a "democratic right" \- again, regardless of the fact that a
country's citizens might have gotten a raw deal because a corrupt government
issued debt it shouldn't have, say, because it was bribed and needed liquidity
to buy something useless/overpriced from whoever bribed it, etc.)

~~~
pjc50
The lack of a sensible bankruptcy procedure for countries is a serious
problem. Individuals can discharge debts in bankruptcy in order to get back on
their feet. Companies have at least two different kinds of bankruptcy
depending on whether they can be run as a going concern or not. But a FX-
denominated debt is potentially an anchor on your country forever. Look at the
Argentine "pari passu" fiasco for example.

Imposing an unpayable debt on a country that forces poverty on its citizens
has a real and serious cost in human life. Wars have been fought over this;
it's often argued that the reparations debt imposed on Germany after WW1 was a
contributing factor to WW2.

~~~
_yosefk
I'm not saying I know what to do about unpayable sovereign debt, just that
defaulting on such debt is not a sensible example of a democratic right. "We
had a referendum and decided that you can all wipe your asses with our bonds"
is probably not the "sensible bankruptcy procedure" that you mention. I did
not claim anything beyond that.

Why do I think my point was worth making? Because there's a huge amount of
issues boiling down to poor coordination between different states today, the
nature of today's economy ensures this will become increasingly common, and I
think it's worth pointing out that simply insisting on "democratic rights"
interpreted as "doing whatever the citizens want, the rest of the world be
damned" doesn't really cut it. And this "interference with democracy" theme is
really really common these days, I bump into this sort of phrasing every other
week.

------
motbob
The article uses numbers pretty dishonestly.

"[T]the health costs of EDCs to Europe are between £113 billion and £195
billion (between €160 and €277 billion) every year."

There is no mention that pesticides/herbicides are a very small percentage of
that number. It doesn't matter whether it's "still bad" that it's a small
percentage. Arstechnica willingly led me to believe that the impact of
pesticides/herbicides was in the hundreds of billions of Euros.

These numbers also, notably, came out long after the 2013 negotiations
mentioned. What was the scientific consensus on EDCs in 2013?

~~~
Tosh108
Further down the article there's an indirect reference:

“I would recommend that pregnant women and children eat organic fruits and
vegetables and avoid using plastic containers and canned food, especially in
the microwave, because containers are usually treated on the inside with
substances and compounds that can leak into the tomato soup and may act as
endocrine disruptors,” he said.

------
based2
Chemicals Legislation
[http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/ind...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/index_en.htm)

[http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-
standards/...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-
standards/harmonised-standards/pesticide-application-equipment/index_en.htm)

Measuring REACH and CLP Enforcement - new study Published on: 19/05/2015, Last
update: 20/05/2015 [http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/newsroom/cf/itemd...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8280&lang=en&title=Measuring-
REACH-and-CLP-Enforcement---new-study)

src: [https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu-
monitoring/...](https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu-
monitoring/dg-environment-explains-delegated-acts-biocides)

[http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_1...](http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_12-bjorn-
interview;jsessionid=FA3521FA977B29C9D750FBFC67D0605E.live2)

------
tim333
While I'm against the TTIP, the "the health costs of EDCs to Europe are
between £113 billion and £195 billion" mentioned in the Ars article seems to
be from the Guaridan article "(£113bn-£195bn)"
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-
co...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-costs-
hormone-disrupting-chemicals-150bn-a-year-europe-says-study)

that says "Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with the human
hormone system, and can be found in food containers, plastics, furniture,
toys, carpeting and cosmetics."

no mention of pesticides in their opening bit. I'm guessing the percentage
exposure coming from pesticides is very small so the financial figures in the
Ars article are misleading.

------
realusername
How can you seriously defend the EU to the average European when you see
things like this ? This kind of stories are not going to help to reduce the
current distrust of everything related to the European union. All this
corruption really does a disservice to the EU.

~~~
peteretep
Honestly? Because my first thought was "there's no way the EU signed off on
this". I challenge anyone to find a stauncher protector of consumer rights in
history than the EU...

~~~
andy_ppp
This is the strange thing about the EU, it is almost as barmy as the BBC but
like them somehow largely manages to do the right thing. It's amazing that
most of our politicians believe with a kind of religious faith that big
business and the free market is the solution when it seems fairly clear the
psychopathic behaviour and the free market has bankrupted government and
ruined the economy. Instead of saying let's put in further more stringent
regulations the neocons have got more of their policies through. I think this
is largely due to an obedient and corporate controlled media.

------
reimertz
Do people want TTIP? Nope.([http://goo.gl/FD145h](http://goo.gl/FD145h)) Do
people want pesticides? Nope. ([https://goo.gl/AQNdZv](https://goo.gl/AQNdZv))

So what is the problem?

~~~
danbruc
_Do people want TTIP? Nope._

That's (sadly) (possibly) not true. I thought it would be scandalous if
Europeans didn't want TTIP and they just ignored the people and continued
negotiating. But then I found this chart [1] and in almost every country the
majority is for a trade agreement. I don't know if the numbers are wrong, if
people are uninformed or if they just don't care, but if the numbers are
correct then it all is just democratic, the majority wins, whether I or you
like it or not.

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe-
on...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe-on-board-for-
a-new-trade-deal-with-the-u-s/)

~~~
taejo
Those survey results show people who are "for a free trade and investment
agreement between the EU and the USA" \-- not those who are for _this_ trade
agreement; the objections to TTIP are arguably _not about the freedom of trade
and investment_.

~~~
minot
Exactly. How am I supposed to say whether I like it or not when I don't know
what "it" is? Lets leave surprises for company pot luck lunches.

Would any elected official dare ask the same about the legislative process?
Isn't a trade agreement that sets precedent as legislation the opposite of a
participatory democracy? It just makes no sense. How can they have things like
TPP and TTIP and still complain about the lack of involvement in politics by
ordinary folks?

------
benaston
Parliamentary democracies are often deeply flawed and in need of reform. That
much is obvious (in the UK at any rate).

The problem with the EU is that is is _even less_ democratic and hence less
accountable than the pre-existing system of national governments.

Furthermore, as this article shows, the EU makes it easier for large companies
and trading blocks to pull-off greater subversions and abuses of power via
lobbying and corruption, since power is concentrated in a much smaller number
of people.

The founders and implementors of the EU "project" used the term "ever tighter
integration" in their founding documents, where they laid out their vision for
a United States of Europe.

They even describe how they intended to implement this via a technique called
"gradualism". The idea being that big sweeping reforms would be rejected by
the individual polities, but that more gradual, subtle changes spread over
time could achieve the same effect without the same resitance. And we have
seen this in action over the past forty years.

A bit like the apochryphal boiling of a frog.

The problem is that this is in some sense subversive and in another,
presumptious that the EU project is desired and/or sensible. At some point the
frog metaphor breaks down and people begin to realize what is happening and
what has happened.

And in the UK at least, finally, we are beginning to see a debate being held
on the desirability of the EU being a _political_ union (rather than the more
prosaic free-trade area).

~~~
higherpurpose
All democratic republics are in dire need of an overhaul for the 21st century.
However, US and UK tend to be worse than many because of the first past the
post voting system.

~~~
minot
I feel bad for the voters in the UK. LD got trounced in this election but in
the previous two elections they had 22 and 23 percentage of votes.

In 2010, Conservatives had 47% of the seats with 36 percent of votes. Labor
had almost 40% with 29% of the votes. LD had 8% with 23% of votes. Even in
2015, they had 1.2% of seats with 7.9% of votes.

If you have almost a quarter of the population voting for you, you'd think you
can make things happen. What went wrong with the referendum? What could the
YES proponents have done differently? More importantly, has the damage been
done? How long do UK nationals have to be quiet about alternative voting now?

~~~
petercooper
We already had a referendum about it four years ago -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011)
\- and it was overwhelmingly in favour of the status quo.

~~~
minot
I am very convinced that a full proportional representation would be very much
better than the status quo. Can we have a referendum again? When would be an
optimal time?

------
matternew
``EU plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals found in pesticides have
been dropped because of threats from the US that this would adversely affect
negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)''

They shouldn't drop them, we should regulate freely and be removed from TTIP.
Being involved in TTIP isn't a privilege or in any way desirable, it's an
undemocratic exercise in futility. So, to me, being ejected is a win-win
scenario.

------
ck2
The do-nothing-congress better crash and burn that thing in the House.

It's going to be crazy if this is one of the few things they pass this year.

------
PythonicAlpha
The problem about "TTIP" and "free trade treaties" is, that they are
continuously used to support the interests of big corporations -- and thus,
lowering health, environmental and other standards is one of the big targets
of those treaties.

I lately saw a documentation about the trade treaty of the US with Mexico.
They said, that standards where lowered in both countries.

Take two or more countries and make today a "free trade treaty" between them,
you get the lowest common denominator, since the big corporations are at the
head of the table.

TTIP starts to reduce standards even _before_ it is signed.

------
cyphunk
Collectively the EU bloc represents the larges global economy (18tr GDP). It
should be the US forced to accept EU regulations to participate in the EU
economy, not the other way around.

~~~
adventured
The US economy is about $1.8 trillion larger than the EU economy presently.

The EU economy is roughly $15.7 trillion (€14.3 trillion), and hasn't grown in
seven years. During that time, the US retook the lead in size and added around
~$2.5 trillion to its GDP. The dollar run in the prior year has also lifted
the value of the US economy at the expense of the EU economy, by about ~13%.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union)

~~~
cyphunk
thanks for updating my outdated data :)

------
parennoob
> EU regulations would have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine
> disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that have been linked to testicular cancer and
> male infertility.

Obvious criticism of sweeping trade treaties aside, this is another blatant
case where the health and well-being of males takes a back seat to political
considerations.

I'll bet my bottom dollar that if these chemicals caused, say, ovarian cancer,
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic would be racing to ban them and get
political brownie points.

------
joering2
_Just after the official launch of the TTIP negotiations on 13 June 2013, a US
business delegation visited EU officials to demand that the proposed
regulations governing EDCs should be thrown out in favour of a further "impact
study."_

May I please know the names of those scumbags, or at least how can I find out?
I want to know more about those brainacs, perhaps place a few phonecalls,
express my disgust.

------
ddon
And what can be done now?

~~~
higherpurpose
Write to your MEPs.

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html)

------
fleitz
Is the EC in charge of the EU? Couldn't they just say no?

~~~
SagelyGuru
and they are unelected

~~~
matt4077
Neither are Merkel, Cameron, Tsipras and probably about 50% of the heads of
government. I doubt there is a country where the Secretary of Defense is
elected.

There's nothing wrong with an elected parliament choosing the executive, and
the EU actually moved to a more direct election with the 'Spitzenkandidat'
system. People still didn't care to vote for the EU parliament.

~~~
benaston
Your comment re Merkel, Cameron et al is a strawman: just because the existing
system of parliamentary democracy is deeply flawed, it does not follow that
another even less democratic system is acceptable.

You point out that Cameron (for example) is not directly elected as PM. He
does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote. Unlike
the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate to
speak of and yet they hold immense power.

34% of those eligible voted in the UK European elections (i.e. for the
European Parliament). Your comment re people not caring is overly simplistic.
People will not vote for a wide variety of reasons. Only one of which is that
they "don't care".

Edit: please explain your downvote, so that I may improve my comment or
respond.

~~~
babatong
>He does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote.
Unlike the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate
to speak of and yet they hold immense power.

You are incorrect. Since the Lisbon treaty at least, the commission is
proposed by the council and then has to be voted on by the parliament.

If anything that gives it even more democratic legitimacy than Cameron, as in
his case only he himself, not his cabinet is voted on by parliament.

You are of course within your right to criticize the parliamentary democratic
system within it self. However a claim that the processes by which the
commission is put in place are less democratic than the processes by which
Cameron or Merkel came to power are just outright false.

~~~
benaston
@germanier and @babatong No, you are both wrong.

The democratic mandate for EU commissioners is less strong than for directly
elected officials.

@matt4077 called out that even Cameron is not elected directly as PM, and that
is correct. The problems with the existing parliamentary democracy in the UK
are well understood.

So having a "somewhat undemocratically elected official" Cameron, nominate a
person for the commission who has not been directly elected _at all_ by the
populous, is less democratic because it is one step further removed from
direct election.

This is how we have all these "unknown faces" wielding immense power in
Brussels - like Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council.

The democratically elected European Parliament then vote for the nominees, but
at this point the nominees already have less mandate (for reasons given above)
than the members of national parliaments (and the EU parliament). And, I might
add, more power.

This is one of the main problems with the EU as a political union. It is a
move away from grass-roots democracy towards a centralized monolith that
disenfranchises millions and millions of people.

~~~
germanier
You seem to miss that the vote in parliament adds and doesn't remove mandate
from the candidates. The MEPs have a very strong opinion on who is a suitable
candidate and who isn't. They used their power to refuse candidates and demand
others in the past and will do so in the future.

By your standards the European Commission has a mandate that is at least as
strong as the one of any European country's government.

~~~
benaston
Not at all.

The question at hand is: do the EU commissioners have a stronger or weaker
democratic mandate than national MPs?

When considering this question, the vote in the EU parliament is neither here
nor there, because the person being voted for by them has not been directly
elected by a single member of the public, possibly ever.

If a person is directly elected by the people he represents, then he has a
stronger mandate than another who has not been directly elected. Mandate gets
weaker the farther you are from direct election by the people.

~~~
germanier
Comparing commissioners to national members of parliament isn't fair, they are
doing completely different jobs.

A member of the European parliament is one degree removed from public vote,
just as a member of a national parliament. A European commissioner is two
degree removed from the public, just like a European head of government. A
minister in most member states is three degrees removed.

If you don't consider the vote in the EP for commissioners as a real vote
because they can't pick their own candidate then it's three degrees removed as
the candidates are picked by the heads of governments.

In any case I can't see how it's less democratic than the election system of
any member state. The commissioners are as far away from the public vote as
almost any member of government in the member states.

~~~
benaston
Both national MPs and EU commissioners are public officials who form public
policy that affects citizens' lives. In that much they are comparable. Both
procedurally and in scope of effect there will be differences of course
(commissioners are much more powerful, and therfore should be held to a higher
level of scrutiny).

In any case, similarity of jobs is orthogonal to the narrow question - who has
the stronger mandate?

Take Person A who via an elected representative would like to effect
legislative change in their nation. Who has the stronger mandate to take
action?

In other words, which representative would be closer to the truth in saying
that "they were acting in Person A's name"?

1\. For the sake of argument, let's take the UK Prime Minister. He is voted
for by a party consisting of members of the public via an open process to
represent a specific platform; is elected directly by a constituency numbering
in the low tens of thousands of people who happen to live in a geographical
area of the nation under representation.

Furthermore, the representative is a widely known public figurehead with a
well-known platform meaning that although members of the public in other
constituencies cannot affect his election to parliament directly, they can
affect the amount of power he wields. The election covers 70 million people.

2\. For an EU Commissioner a shortlist of representatives are chosen _in
secret_ by a team of people, each of whom is a proxy, elected via a process
similar to (1). One of the shortlist is chosen by a vote from members of a
directly elected parliament. The election takes into consideration the views
of 3/4 billion people.

The EU commissioner shortlist process is secret (and thus open to nefarious
influence - go on: tell me this will not happen), the final vote is diluted by
the views of an order of magnitude more people, spread over a much greater
geographic area (meaning a much wider range of concerns need be taken into
consideration), and the commissioner need not have been elected directly by
anyone from the population he represents (other than via proxy).

Based on this, it is clear that the representative in scenario (1) has a
stronger claim to be said to be acting in the name of Person A than the person
elected via process (2).

The EU is hence less democratic than the institutions is is replacing, and is
in some sense democratically regressive.

(And this is before any discussion about the differences in the legislative
path between Westminster and the EU).

~~~
SagelyGuru
I agree. Thank you for the expanded explanation of the reasons behind my above
brief comment. I just note in passing with wry bemusement, that my comment
that sparked such illuminating discussion apparently deserves only 0 points.

------
sillygoose
You know, if EU countries were genuinely concerned about their beloved
citizens coming into contact with damaging chemicals, they could warn them on
the evening news or something.

    
    
        Hey there Dear Citizens, these products have been found
        to cause cancer. Please avoid using them, and tell your
        friends to avoid them too! 
        
        Best Regards, 
        Your Benevolent, Caring Overlords
    

Do you think that just _might_ have an effect on the companies producing the
toxic crap they force on us?

    
    
        "Those naughty companies haven't stopped putting cancer-causing
        chemicals in their products. You should still boycott them."
    

If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they
were safe.

~~~
imron
Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening
news, and also have bigger marketing budgets than the companies producing such
chemicals.

Sure.

 _If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until
they were safe._

No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of such
chemicals.

~~~
sillygoose
> _Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening
> news_

Well yeah, they largely do:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98)

But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a
noble cause, yes?

> _No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of
> such chemicals._

Sure, and if they _really cared_ , they could do that even despite the TTIP,
or they could reject or re-negotiate the TTIP. There's no way around that,
regardless of whether you trust that governments are operating with _our_ best
interests at heart.

~~~
imron
> But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a
> noble cause, yes?

As privately run corporations, news organizations go where the money is and I
trust them even less than I trust the government. The number of _ignoble_
causes they have cooperated on in the recent past leaves them with a very
large credibility gap in my mind.

And while the government is not perfect, at least I live in a country where
lobbying (aka bribery) is no where near as institutionalised and prevalent as
you see in the U.S.

So while my government might not always have _my_ best interests at heart,
they are definitely more concerned and more trustworthy than a news
organisation.

~~~
DanBC
Didn't the 911 conspiracy theory video link make you think that maybe it's not
worth speaking to silly goose?

~~~
imron
To be honest, I didn't even click through to the video.

Your point has been noted.

~~~
sillygoose
He didn't have a point. He just signaled that he can't think independently.

The video is a summary of _what we were told happened_ , through the
mainstream media. The story is _absurd_ , which means _it 's not actually
true_! That, in turn, means that there was, in fact, a conspiracy!

Here's a few videos of an invisible plane hitting a building, which then
collapses seemingly on its own:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg)
.. but it wasn't on its own, of course, because an invisible plane hit it!

Feel free to start thinking for yourself any time now.

------
jokoon
I hate to say this, and I don't think it's justified, but that's the kind of
stuff al-qaeda would fight against.

Someday having anti-american opinions might equate with being a terrorist.

~~~
andy_ppp
Someday! Funny that you should say this but David Cameron wants us to never be
left alone by the state and anti terror laws are regularly used against people
who are not terrorists. The police are being militarised and the human rights
act is being removed from law here in the UK. Someday looks like tomorrow to
me.

------
kokey
Opening up trade is bad by default... to those that benefit from the barriers
that are in place. I am always suspicious of a lot of emotive campaigning in
response to trade agreements that opens up trade.

~~~
msvalkon
Did you by chance read the article? This has little to do with opening up
trade and much to do with providing ridiculous amount of power to any major
corporation.

EDIT:

Suppose I'm a producer of bottled water from Germany. I bottle a lot of water
in California. The Californians vote to move to heavy water rationing and
regulation due to the threat of continuous draught. This hurts my business, so
should I be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California, have
any possible trials and hearings within a closed courtroom and possibly
overrule the vote?

~~~
RobertoG
Agree, the motivation of all this is, at least, worrisome.

You should be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California... in
California. But this is not what we are talking about here.

We are talking about the creation of new special courtrooms above the laws of
California, staffed by people that worked for corporations and when they left
the job are going to work for corporations again.

If this is not worrisome, you tell me what it is.

