TTIP is still on the table, though German Magistrates say no

This is from a site called Techdirt:

Top German Judges Tear To Shreds EU's Proposed TAFTA/TTIP Investment Court System

from the wrong-way-forward dept

As Techdirt has repeatedly pointed out, one of the most problematic aspects of the TAFTA/TTIP deal being negotiated between the US and the EU is the inclusion of a corporate sovereignty chapter -- officially known as "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS). Techdirt isn't the only one worried about it: no less a person than the EU's Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, said last year that she "shares" the concerns here. Her response was to draw up the new "ICS" -- "Investor Court System -- as an alternative. US interest in ICS is conspicuous by its absence, but Malmström keeps plugging away at the idea, evidently hoping to defuse European opposition to TTIP by getting rid of old-style corporate sovereignty.

That plan has just received a huge setback in the form of an "Opinion on the establishment of an investment tribunal in TTIP". It comes from the German Magistrates Association, which Wikipedia describes as "the largest professional organization of judges and public prosecutors in Germany." So these are not a bunch of know-nothing hippie activists, but serious establishment figures with a deep knowledge of the law. Here's their basic position on Malmström's ICS, translated from the original German by TNI:

The German Magistrates Association [DRB] rejects the proposal of the European Commission to establish an investment court within the framework of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The DRB sees neither a legal basis nor a need for such a court. 

Please read more here

Would you like to sign a petition against this Trade Deal? It basically makes Europe a part of the American marketplace, and gives corporations a free hand in Europe so that the public has no recourse to open courts against them. It takes away our freedoms.

Here is the petition site: sign while you still have the freedom to do so.

Green World Edition 90: letter about staying in the European Union

Asking why the Greens support staying in Europe - a good point by Harold Immanuel

"The punishment of both Greece and Syriza demonstrates that solidarity - social, economic or political - is not what the EU is fundamentally about. Rather, it is about the three pillars of free movement of capital, goods and labour. Supporting free movement of capital is not a sustainable position for a radical party. Nor do arguments about keeping the peace, free movement of people, social policy, taxation, subsidiarity and solidarity stand up to serious scrutiny. Within the EU, it's difficult to see how many of our policies could be implemented."

I like the idea of being in a group with other Europeans because of our shared history and values and actually, practical intelligence! (I mean, common sense not spying). I feel that with so many groups and leaders, one or two of them must have some good ideas. I mean, put into practice,  good for the people of Europe, and indeed, the rest of the world. But I am absolutely repelled by the idea of TTIP and how it is being discussed in secret. What is going on in the EU?? Some failure of basic democratic principles.

The Conference season, October 2015

Owen Jones attended the Tory conference to report on it for the Guardian. He gets a good reaction from everyone who knows who he is, which must be quite pleasing for him. (he is very baby-faced and disarming: Have a look at his interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg)

"On Tuesday, Theresa May incurs the wrath even of the Telegraph because of her inflammatory inti-immigration keynote speech, a tirade somewhat oddly entitled "a beacon of hope". Many of the delegates are happy with it, but there are exceptions. When I ask 25-year-old Rory White-Andrews - a corporate finance lawyer in the City - how he feels about it, his response is instant and brutal. "Disgusting. I think immigrants contribute a huge amount to this country and frankly we need more people coming in. I thought it was horrible."

"The atmosphere is peculiar. "It's remarkably flat, complacent", says White-Andrews. Nearly everyone I speak to admits to having been deeply surprised when the Tories pulled off an absolute majority in May. Conor Allcock, 17, says he felt "smug" about it.

"Liam Fox, an ex-minister and a flagbearer for the Tory right... [said] "The task in the second half of the parliament will be holding the party together in the referendum, and that very much depends on how we treat each other. People who want to stay in the EU are not traitors to the country, and people who want to leave are not idiots."

Owen found many Tories who were intensely opposed to Osborne's stance on Tax Credits - (and when finally the Lords did the huge favour to us all of throwing that policy out, Osborne wisely decided to drop it).

"Truth is, protests aside, there isn't much buzz at conference."

Frankie Boyle attended all the conferences in order to be witty or at least humorous about them. He is an unlikeable man but his comments were very perceptive:

"After the second world war, Melanesian islanders formed cargo cults near abandoned airfields. They thought that if they carried out the rituals they had observed the troops performing at the American air force bases, planes would land. So they would march up and down in improvised uniforms performing parade ground drills with wooden rifles, believing that if the rites were performed correctly the planes would return and bring them cargo. I only mention this as a useful point of comparison for the Liberal Democrat conference. An isolated tribe going through the formal motions of something they think will bring votes, failing to understand that their actions are meaningless and vestigial. ....

"Labour's conference featured quite an impressive run-up by Jeremy Corbyn, tackling TV interviewers like a soothing GP talking to a hypochondriac. There was remarkably little infighting at the conference, as happens when a party realises it needs to put divisions aside and show solidarity to become electable, or, indeed, when two separate halves of a party loathe each other so much that they have to go to different sets of meetings.

Listening leadership

"Corbyn took to the stage with his head like a haunted tennis ball, and the general air of a pigeon that had inherited a suit. ... The new Labour leader insisted, "Leadership is about listening." If leadership were about listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different. Churchill saying "Can you tell me what you'd like to do on the beaches?"...

"Corbyn has had trouble persuading his MPs that nuclear weapons are bad. Then again, he hasn't had much success persuading his MP's that Tories are bad. There seems to be a real split on Trident in the party between extreme elements who don't think we should recommission it, and more moderate voices who want to retain the ability to heat hundreds of thousands of people's skeletons to the surface temperature of the planet Mercury, in case 1970s Russia tries to attack us through some kind of Stargate.

Jobs - or nuclear holocaust?

"Len McCluskey announced that the union Unite would block plans to scrap Trident in an attempt to protect jobs. It's a tough call, jobs over a potential nuclear holocaust. But perhaps McCluskey is right: if there is an accident, there will be jobs aplenty. Full employment for the six people left in the UK. And they'll be happy to pay their Unite dues when they find out they have got a job for life (which may only be for less than a week) as they become their own farmer, cook, builder, doctor....

"There are obviously huge differences between Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, and it's refreshing to see a leader mess up some of his speech not because he's a freakshow, but because he simply doesn't care. As I watched the standard conference procedure of people applauding things they would fast forward on YouTube, it occurred to me that this conference may have accidentally stumbled upon the one message that might reassure British voters: that you can have enormous change without puncturing the boredom.

The conservatives

There was a ring of steel around the conference. Ironically, it's the last steel the north will be seeing for a very long time. Tory conference seemed to be all about saying how much you believe in British values, then immediately contradicting yourself: "This country has always welcomed migrants ... but we're full up."

The first big hitter to take the stage was George Osborne, a man who is not afraid to bark at his hairdresser "Demented syphilitic emperor!" and his tailor: "Prom night at Slytherin!"

The hair

The suit

"Osborne insisted that the Conservatives are the "party of labour" to a television audience largely consisting of the unemployed. ...

"Of course, it's absurd that we trust the Tories with our day-to-day reality, as so many of them don't really inhabit it. Why elect people to run our schools and hospitals who choose not to go to those schools and hospitals?..."

"Admittedly, the Conservatives are generally more persuasive orators than their Labour counterparts, perhaps a skill developed by spending school holidays trying to lure father out from behind his Daily Telegraph. Jeremy Hunt said that he wants Britain's workers to work harder, like the Chinese. Hunt's wife is Chinese and is often heard muttering, "Christ, this is hard work."

"Then came Theresa May, a woman who exudes all the compassion of stage 4 bone cancer, talking of her party's "proud history" of helping vulnerable people...

"The whole sorry season finished with David Cameron, of all people, giving a speech about equality. A speech blatantly at right angles to everything he has every said or done...

"It was a speech he could give because he knows it simply doesn't matter. TTIP be will coming in soon and all of this will be rendered symbolic. Our new rulers will be corporations. Looking down at Britain from business class, all the party conferences - and the protesters marching up and down outside them - will look like little cargo cults. We will be allowed to keep our political rituals because they have an entertainment value, and because somebody needs to give speeches and answer questions. That's not something our new rulers will be doing. They will be glimpsed only occasionally, stepping briskly into waiting cars. Our elected officials will soon fill a function much like the one the media fills now, as mere agents of a greater power. With no other role to play, our politicians will continue doing what they know: waving to the cameras, forcing a smile, hoping to keep us paying attention to their strange, dull ceremonies."

Lack of Democracy

Recently I have been very lazy, politically. I was going to go to London to campaign last weekend for Green issues, I had it in my diary for weeks, but then my husband got us invited to a friend's house for Sunday lunch, so we did a walk in the Surrey hills, Sunday lunch, film with our friends; and I never went to London.

I emailed my MP about the new deal for Junior Doctors and I got a lengthy and really irrelevant cut-and -paste reply. this is because my MP is Philip Hammond. Yes, the Foreign Secretary is my M.P. and before he went to the Foreign Office he was the Minister of Defence. You can imagine how excited he is every day now that we are bombing Syria and Iraq! what can make a man/woman feel more important than having people kill people because you say so! He is, in effect, the King!

(He felt pretty important for the years before his rise to power, as he always got around in a chauffeur-driven posh car even if he was just visiting the Girl Guides summer fete.)

So although I would like to tell my M.P. my strong feelings about the war and TTIP, there is really no point. He is not representing my views, no way. He is representing the diametrical opposite of my views. Caroline Lucas is representing my views, and I am always glad to hear her doing so. But democracy - don't make me laugh. Boo hoo.

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - as it says in The Week, Boring but Important

The Members of the European Parliament have held up this trade deal, much to the annoyance of the capitalists of two continents. But they can only do so much because it is being negotiated IN SECRET -why??? by the European Commission and ???some body from the USA.

The idea is that Europe will be tied in to a free trade area with the United States. As far as I can see it makes Europe part of the United States, as far as business is concerned, and the Tory government is all in favour of this. But let's look at the downside.

Yes, it would reduce trade tariffs. But trade tariffs are there to protect local economies. For example, US orange juice may be cheaper to produce than Spanish orange juice, (let's say). So to protect Spanish orange growers, there may be a tariff on US orange juice. Is this such a bad thing? Isn't it good to see a traditional fruit being grown in the place it's always been grown? Better than seeing nothing at all being grown.

The treaty also bans state monopolies. Yes, it is completely against state-run enterprise such as the NHS, or any state-owned utilities - gas and water, for example, which always seem to me to be in need of state ownership to be efficiently and fairly distributed. So the current operation of the NHS would become illegal under this treaty.

there will also be, under this treaty, an Investor-State dispute settlement, which founds a SECRET COURT to allow businesses to sue states that "hinder potential profits". this sounds to me like selling the population down the river to be slaves to the profiteers.

That sounds potentially worrying. What else is in the treaty?

Environmental campaigners have raised concerns: TTIP would bring the EU's food and environmental safety regulations in line with the US's less strict laws.

In order to align the EU and laxer US rules, the agreement could weaken European and UK regulation in areas including genetically modified crops, chemicals in cosmetics and meat treated with growth hormones. There is widespread opposition to this environmental aspect of the treaty, especially in Germany and France which are major opponents of genetically modified products.

For example, the EU bans 1,200 chemicals from cosmetics, whereas the US bans just 12

The above paragraph comes from the Telegraph

So, then. To all intents and purposes the EU becomes part of the US, because all our carefully thought -out protections against this and that chemical are thrown out at a stroke. I can't understand why the EU wants to do this to us??

Of course, the Conservative government can't wait to ratify this treaty because it loves the USA and  enslavement to the capitalist market place. Labour would re-negotiate I think.