
German economy minister says EU-US trade talks have failed - paol
http://bigstory.ap.org/611ff828b5ed44d5ad56ab46e0781e52
======
slowmovintarget
Only slightly more informative:
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/03/what-is-
tti...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/03/what-is-ttip-
controversial-trade-deal-explained)

From this article:

>> One of the most controversial elements of the trade proposal is the
Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision. ISDS provisions have been
included in many trade deals since the 1980s, to encourage overseas investment
in poorer countries. It means private investors can ask a tribunal of
international arbitrators to judge if a government has treated them unfairly –
and can get compensation.

That seems like a really bad thing.

~~~
avar
How do you propose to mediate trade disputes between companies and states
without something like the ISDS?

Imagine this on say the US national level. Apple wants to sell its computers
in Alaska, but Alaska has a domestic computing company that gets goverment
subsidizes, creating unfair competition. In this case the federal government
would step in.

There's an analogous issue with international trade agreements. National
governments will enter into those agreements, but their courts are always
going to be biased towards their local constituents, so in my example Apple
couldn't hope for a fair result by suing in Alaskan courts.

So there needs to be some pan-national body to settle these sort of disputes
without turning every little international company v.s. company or company
v.s. government issue into a full-on diplomatic dispute between the respective
governments involved.

The ISDS in the TTIP seems like such a facility. Why is it unreasonable? I'm
not some TTIP proponent or corporate shill, I'm just genuinely curious about
this, it just seems to me that a lot of comments on the Internet, including on
HN, have knee-jerk negative reactions to every provision in the TTIP without
thinking about the real issues those provisions might be solving.

~~~
mamon
>>...without turning every little international company v.s. company or
company v.s. government issue into a full-on diplomatic dispute between the
respective governments involved.

The thing is that "full-on diplomatic dispute" is the only fair way to settle
that, because governments are chosen by people, so they are legal
representatives of them. ISDS on the other hand is some shady institution
without any democratic control, and probably sponsored by the very
corporations they are supposed to judge.

If you put things in perspective you can see what this TTIP deal is all about:
big international corporations like Apple or Google don't like the fact that
governments can create laws that they are obliged to respect.

What corporations hate even more is every country having it's own set of laws
to follow. So, the whole idea of TTIP is to strip governments (with possible
exception of US government) of power over corporations.

~~~
avar
I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies.
Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-
national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every
incident to a diplomatic dispute.

If people don't like that they'll make in an election issue, and either it'll
be re-negotiated after the next election or the nation will leave the trade
agreement. That's the democratic process at work.

How is that a better option anyway? So now instead of some court that has to
be seen to be fair to the entire trade block deciding things, you want to have
n^2 potential dispute mechanisms in place between the n countries that are
part of the agreement?

    
    
        > big international corporations [...] don't like the fact that
        > governments can create laws that they are obliged to respect.
    

Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is that
it's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make international
investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy that runs
counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed upon.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I think you 're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies.
> Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-
> national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every
> incident to a diplomatic dispute. If people don't like that they'll make in
> an election issue, and either it'll be re-negotiated after the next election
> or the nation will leave the trade agreement. That's the democratic process
> at work._

Quite. Is someone proposing that we do otherwise? If not, I'm not sure what
point you're trying to make.

> _Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is
> that it 's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make
> international investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy
> that runs counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed
> upon._

I'm not sure why governments should be more concerned about promoting
international trade than about protecting their citizens. See e.g. the
fracking thing upthread.

------
aleksei
This is not the first time Gabriel has expressed anti-TTIP views
([https://www.rt.com/news/344785-ttip-germany-bad-
deal/](https://www.rt.com/news/344785-ttip-germany-bad-deal/)).

However, Merkel for example is for the deal, so it's hard to say what the
outcome will be. A lot of local politicians want to push the deal through, but
talks have stalled and there is some opposition from the public as well.

Interesting to see the final outcome here. Hopefully the obviously bad can be
stripped, while retaining any good.

~~~
lima
> some opposition from the public

TTIP is highly unpopular in Germany. In recent polls, 70% had unfavorable
views about the treaty.

I personally don't know anyone who isn't concerned about it. The concerns I've
heard to far were about consumer protection and the investor-state-dispute
thing.

~~~
aleksei
Sure, but how many are willing to change their voting preferences or educate
others about the dangers of TTIP? Many polls show people to be disgruntled by
polticians, yet they keep electing the same people.

And surely it was 70% of the people who took the poll and were consequently
made aware of TTIP?

I'm not saying there isn't opposition, most people I know are against it. But
other people seem to not even know about it, or find it difficult to see why
politicians would do something against their best interests.

~~~
samastur
I really dislike this argument. When I go to a polling booth, I don't get a
list of issues where I could check my position on each one. What I get is one
vote to select a person or party which across all issues I care about comes
closest to a position I can (or have to) live with.

I've yet to be in situation where I would be in agreement on every important
issue with choices on offer. There are always multiple issues on which I have
to compromise which doesn't mean they are not important. Individually they may
be even at the top of my list, but can cumulatively still lose to others.

------
ced
_Gabriel accused Washington of being "angry" about the deal that the EU struck
with Canada, known as CETA, because it contains elements the U.S. doesn't want
to see in the TTIP._

What would those elements be?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Very light on investor protections and retains a lot of the EU regulations to
be kept. In particular about food safety and similar things.

~~~
majewsky
But why does it matter that these are not part of TTIP? If CETA is signed into
law and includes those regulations, then US companies can just route their
business with the EU through their Canadian branches and get the same
benefits.

(Unless, of course, European parliaments discover some leftover spine in their
bodies and vote against CETA.)

~~~
josteink
> but why does it matter that these are not part of TTIP? If CETA

The tinfoil hat summary is that the US is trying to push through its own
policies worldwide, one dominated by lack of regulation, lack of work
protection and lots of protection for investors and people with money.

If they would be able to strick similar deals worldwide, US companies would be
able to move production to wherever it is cheap, and no workers right exist,
while having the investors money covered in case the corrupt dictatorships
screws them over.

Any new deal signed which mandates workers right, environmental protections,
and doesn't put investor-money above human lives, is detrimental to this
global power-grab effort.

~~~
mathiasrw
> The tinfoil hat summary is that the US is trying to push through its own
> policies worldwide

There is no tinfoil hat about that...

------
finid
> Gabriel's comments contrast with those of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said
> last month that TTIP was "absolutely in Europe's interest."

Just as the French will someday regret the day they elected both Sarkozy and
Hollande, Germans will in time curse the day they elected Merkel.

------
DominikR
The reason why ISDS provisions are even discussed is that governments have
become so overreaching in regulating economic activity that business owners
today have the very real fear that they'll be put out of business because a
government passes a law that will (sometimes even retroactively) force them to
make gigantic payments.

ISDS provisions are in that sense a solution for a world where we expect that
government power over the economy will likely increase even more in the
future.

The solution that I prefer is to shrink government so it can't interfere
anymore to a degree that turns good and successful investments retroactively
into bad investments that cause investors to lose a lot of money and time.

------
raverbashing
Good

The benefits were much smaller than the drawbacks

------
allendoerfer
In the past he had a different opinion about TTIP [0].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Zb0XxSkxE&t=29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Zb0XxSkxE&t=29)

------
SixSigma
The UK is back of the queue but at least we're still in the queue !

~~~
gutnor
The problem for the UK getting quick trade deal is to get good deals.

If it´s only trade deals that the UK wants they just have to accept the first
draft of all the deals other government put on the table. Many countries will
queue to sign for unrestricted access to the UK market, no string attached.
The EU will be the first in line.

------
timwaagh
i guess its a case of the us not wanting to make any concessions. i think its
ok though, america can keep its exceptionalism as we don't need ttip to flood
the american market with cheap 'italian' shoes (they are likely products of
macedonian or albanian sweatshop labour). we already have ft with canada
apparantly and canada is in nafta, so they will pass through canada where they
will be traded with the us under nafta free trade regime.

~~~
celticninja
That's great for Europe as they can access the US market however it means the
US cannot access the European market. I am sure that selling your products
abroad is much more preferable to importing goods.

~~~
avar
So the US can't access the EU through:

    
    
       US -> Canada -> EU
    

But somehow the EU can access the US through:

    
    
       EU -> Canada -> US
    

What part af that path doesn't involve a bidirectional free trade agreement
that would make it just as easy for the US to access the EU via Canada as the
other way around?

~~~
riffraff
the assumption is that the EU-Canada agreement puts more restrictions on
products so that everything which is allowed on the second path goes through
all of it, but the opposite is not true.

(AFAIK this isn't generally true outside of agro/food but that is a large part
of potential US->EU exports being erased while "Italian shoes" and "french
wine" still get through in the other direction)

------
karma_vaccum123
The US should concede nothing. Indeed if I were negotiating for the US, I
would exploit the current weaknesses in the EU to impose a deal that makes
clear Europe's decline.

