
TTIP Documents Revealed - BonsaiDen
http://international.sueddeutsche.de/post/143690739565/ttippapiere
======
cmarschner
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
could be traced back to the origin.

Source - German media coverage.

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

~~~
richmarr
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.

~~~
erikb
What I don't get is why you would make your peers your enemy. Making the US
bargaining side your enemy makes sense, but what problems would your peers
have with that? Especially long term.

------
marmaduke
Why would the EU comprise citizens' health to sell a few more cars? Is it
American investors on both sides?

~~~
Aelinsaar
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.

~~~
M2Ys4U
The UK government is one of the most pro-TTIP in the EU, unfortunately.

~~~
Silhouette
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.

------
matt_wulfeck
> 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.

~~~
zavi
> 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.

~~~
skrause
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.

~~~
nickpsecurity
You should look up our pharmaceutical industry. They keep the risk down to a
certain amount, forge the data with questionable methodology, make billions on
the products, and then pay a fraction of that in settlements or whatever.
Banking sector is similarly bad about stuff except with money instead of lives
(most of the time).

Yes, they'll release a product that might be harmful. The tradeoff is whether
they can get away with it in court. The Ford Pinto case is a classic example
of that kind of thinking gone wrong. I suggest you look its details up to see
how our boardrooms think on things. It was _really bad_. Least they paid for
it.

------
prodemo
I wonder whats the estimated damage of democracy to the western economies
(seriously). Wouldn't it be way better to let the heads of big cooperations or
their relatives rule the western world? This way trade agreements like TTIP
could be done in a more open way. Nobody would be able to complain as they got
no vote and legislation would be easier! Also we could forbid lobbyism and
replace it with a more open and honest "Pay for Law". So vote for more open
legislation by abolishing democracy. Remember making life easier for the best
and richest among us is the most nobel goal in life.

------
ghostDancer
And they call this free market. US government bullying for benefit of the
corporations and not even for the US people. This is going back to middle ages
, the landlords and the peasants.

------
edko
How about some reciprocation on immigration laws as well? How fair and free
can this agreement be if the immigration flow in one of the directions is so
much easier than in the other?

~~~
tomp
Which direction is that (honest question, I suspect US -> EU being easier, but
I recall companies having trouble "importing" Americans as well...)?

~~~
jakub_g
In fact there's no such a thing as a EU-US deal at all. US has separate deals
with each EU country.

If you're from one of non-blessed EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus,
Romania and most notably Poland), you can not enter the US without a visa,
even for tourism.

------
aw3c2
All I see is a single post and an image of a container ship, is my browser
broken or are there no documents?

~~~
weinzierl
> The material, consisting of 240 pages, was provided by Greenpeace and will
> be published this coming Monday.

~~~
r721
>Greenpeace Netherlands is releasing a package of leaked TTIP negotiation
texts on Monday morning, at 11am CET

[http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/20...](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/2016/Leaked-
TTIP-documents-confirm-major-risks-for-climate-environment-and-consumer-
safety/)

------
marak830
Well doesn't that agreement sound bloody delightful. I am looking forward to
reading the full text.

------
onetimePete
Assuming TTIP fails, how will the next contract to attack democracy be called?
QTIP? UTIP? COUP? GRACE?

At least put some effort into naming. To have your rights grind away so slowly
and being coerced like a mule to even thread that mill that maims you.. Im for
a law that forbids to discuss content-similar contracts that have been
downvoted for at least 8 years.

------
Qantourisc
I just wondered about one thing. Why when the US asked (forced ?) the EU to
negotiate in secret didn't the EU answer with a f.u. ? Also who are these
people that agree to do this in secret ?

~~~
mcv
The EU isn't quite the democratic paradise either. We too have corporate
lobbyists writing laws, and politicians and officials negotiating behind
closed doors.

On average, the EU is more transparent than the EU, and politicians tend to
feel more like they really should be representing the people, but it's really
a sliding scale with the US just a bit further down than the EU.

I really hope transparency about the TTIP negotiations will help turn this
around in both the EU and the US.

------
auganov
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 push it through I guess?

~~~
inDigiNeous
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-...](http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2016/02/ttip-
big-business-could-sue-governments-over-tax-profits))

So .. effectively, this could mean that a corporation could overrule a
government in legislation if it would be harming it's profits.

The big problem with this for example here in Finland is that through these
measure big corporations could try to take over the nations natural resources,
like water and forest, which are and should be protected by local laws. But
through this kind of legal means, these corporations could be allowed to sue
the government over the loss of a profit due to protecting legislation, in
order just to make a profit out of it. Which is complete and total bullshit.

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

~~~
jakub_g
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)

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

[http://theconversation.com/big-tobacco-vs-australia-
philip-m...](http://theconversation.com/big-tobacco-vs-australia-philip-
morris-scores-an-own-goal-4967)

Yes, it's a virtual threat.

~~~
Silhouette
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be entirely clear. The case you refer to
in Australia was apparently thrown out because of some dubious changes to the
company ownership arrangements that appeared to have been made just for the
purposes of bringing a lawsuit, when the change in cigarette packaging rules
was already public knowledge by that time.

[http://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2015/dec/18/austra...](http://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2015/dec/18/australia-wins-international-legal-battle-with-philip-morris-
over-plain-packaging)

~~~
pas
Yes, they played an empty hand, and when their bluff was called they promptly
lost.

