Further to Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes’s recent letter to The Irish Times about an article concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)…

Brian Hayes, MEP, takes me to task for suggesting in a recent article that aspects of the proposed EU-transatlantic treaties need far better political and journalistic scrutiny than they are getting.

He is particularly insistent that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has gone away forever and that the public interest EU “precautionary principle” is under no threat.
This is an extremely complacent and short-sighted view.

The central question for both the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) (almost ratified) and TTIP (whenever it makes its inevitable reappearance) is whether the EU’s guiding principle on food and safety standards will be preserved when regulatory harmonisation starts to bite.

Experts close to the policy process acknowledge that the EU, which has higher standards than the US in many areas, will have to adopt a strongly defensive stance on food safety and health issues if it is to tackle robust American interests.

There is no certainty that the European Commission is able or willing to mount a defence, since it is motivated, particularly now in hard economic times, to add momentum to transatlantic diplomacy that will seal a deal as quickly as possible and with a minimum of public fuss.

The risk for public health, however, is that key European principles will be regarded as legitimate bargaining chips in the effort to negotiate economic gain and that the end product will favour corporate interests far more than the public interest.

Through its actions at the World Trade Organisation, the US has already demonstrated opposition to EU policies in food safety and, as the European Journal of Public Health points out, has steadily pressed for adoption of a more US-centric approach to the scientific evidence that is called upon to underpin public-health rules.

We can see from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that US interests are also pushing for a more aggressive stance in trade deals to favour the patenting of medical procedures, extending medical data exclusivity and supporting the ever-greening of patents.

Arguably the biggest threat in these treaties is that they enable multinational companies to raise legal challenges against food and public health legislation. Arbitration held in private allows corporations to bypass national courts.

Essentially it opens the way for corporate investors to scavenge for profits by suing governments, accusing them of breaking trade commitments with their own national food and health regulations.

This aspect of trade treaties is currently being activated in South America, where multinational tobacco firms are attacking cigarette control regulations in Uruguay, despite the Uruguayan constitutional court supporting its own government’s sovereign right to regulate smoking.

All of Ireland’s 15 MEPs should be well aware that the way trade negotiations are structured has been problematic for some time. This criticism has been well circulated in Brussels by various citizen lobby groups over several years.

No action has been taken to correct the glaring imbalance in the composition of EU expert groups that reflects the relative influence of corporate investors and public interest advocates.

European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly in Brussels has been outspoken about the absence of consumer protection representatives on these expert groups that have significant influence on the way the European Commission arrives at trade decisions.

The EU and the US negotiate trade issues through a well-established dialogue process, which is designed in theory to allow consultation with non-governmental organisations. But the consultation mechanisms for business are systematically stronger than those for consumer, environmental, labour and public health advocates.

Irish MEPs should be leading the charge towards urgent reform of the internal workings of EU policy-making.

If a more transparent EU doesn’t begin to appear on the agenda pretty quickly, the current mood of alienation evident in the UK and parts of eastern Europe could begin to get a grip in Ireland too.

No amount of complacent bluster from our MEPs will save us from that.

Farrel Corcoran,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.

Media, democracy and international trade agreements (Irish Times)

Previously: Brian’s TTIP