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U.S. Proposes Provision on Tobacco in Trade Pact

Oct 1st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/international/us-proposes-provision-on-tobacco-in-trade-pact.html?_r=0

ATLANTA — The United States proposed this week to bar tobacco companies from using special trade tribunals to sue or threaten countries that passed antismoking laws, hoping to remove one roadblock to what would be the largest regional trade agreement in history.

The tobacco provision remains tentative, but its inclusion in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated here would be a major victory for public health advocates and could set a precedent for other trade pacts.

Tobacco companies have been using existing global trade agreements to counter antismoking laws, especially in poorer nations, and advocates fear that the Pacific trade accord could provide another legal weapon.

Public health experts said the tobacco industry’s use of so-called Investor-State Dispute Settlement tribunals had become so widespread that many poorer countries were abandoning their antismoking efforts. Those underdeveloped nations are also the newest markets for tobacco companies, which are struggling to offset big declines in smoking in the United States and other rich countries.

The Obama administration had originally refrained from proposing such a provision, prompting fierce criticism from anti-tobacco activists who had urged the administration to use the trade talks to stop the practice. But late Wednesday, President Obama’s chief trade negotiator, Michael B. Froman, offered the proposal as an alternative to broader ones from Australia and Malaysia. American officials said the other nations’ plans could affect not only tobacco companies but also tobacco farmers and the alcohol and soft-drink industries, which would provoke political opposition in Congress and other nations.

The tobacco proposal will still meet opposition in Washington, where Mr. Obama would need bipartisan support to approve any trade agreement next year.

“I’ll not only vote against it, I’ll work hard to have it defeated if it goes in the final agreement,” said Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from the tobacco state of North Carolina, who supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership effort.

“Once you carve out someone from dispute settlement agreements, then who’s next?”

Mr. Tillis’s Republican colleague from North Carolina, Senator Richard Burr, also complained. And Mr. Tillis said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, had expressed reservations. Mr. McConnell had no comment.

Tobacco consumption more than doubled from 1970 to 2000 in the developing world, which is now home to more than three-quarters of the world’s smokers.

“Countries want to put a stop to the abuse of the trade system by the tobacco companies,” said Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-tobacco advocacy group. “This language sounds like it does that.”

Companies declined to comment on the provision on Thursday, saying it was not final. A group of business trade organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement this week it would oppose “a wide range of product and industry exclusions from core rules.”

The tobacco exception is one of a number of changes that would be made in such trade arbitration panels largely in response to widespread criticisms. On the left and right, critics have complained that the settlement process favors big corporations and threatens the sovereignty of nations to take actions and pass laws safeguarding public health and safety.

The trade agreement, if reached, would put the burden of proof on companies that sue through the tribunals. Also, a company would no longer be able to challenge a country’s laws or regulations simply by arguing that these laws would hurt the company’s “expectations” of profit.

Lawyers named to serve as arbitrators on the trade panels would be subject to a code of conduct and could be challenged about possible conflicts of interest. Some variation of the Investor-State Dispute Settlements tribunals has been part of trade agreements for decades, including about 50 to which the United States is a party. The settlement process gives companies the right to sue governments directly, instead of having to persuade a foreign state to take their case. A small panel of lawyers decides the matter, not a country’s courts, under the theory that the courts might be biased against foreign investors.

In the worst case, such tribunals exist to protect against foreign governments’ expropriation or nationalization of an industry. More often, these tribunals are intended to give foreign investors a sense of financial security. But critics say they are increasingly abused by deep-pocketed multinationals — notably the tobacco companies.

Philip Morris International has sued Australia and Uruguay for antismoking efforts under such agreements. This week, the head of the World Health Organization noted that Australia had spent $50 million to defend its mandate for plain packaging of cigarettes against industry opposition. In Africa, at least four countries — Namibia, Gabon, Togo and Uganda — have received warnings from the tobacco industry that their laws run afoul of international treaties.

“This is a brave step for the administration to take,” said Thomas Bollyky, a trade lawyer and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Gregg Haifley, the federal relations director at the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm, said the provision would bring American trade policy in line with United States health policy. “The tradition in trade has been to treat tobacco as just another business, just another product,” he said, adding, “This proposal changes that dynamic.”

Trade ministers for the Pacific nations stretching from Canada to Chile and Japan to Australia will meet for a third day on Friday in what could be the conclusion of six years of negotiations toward the largest regional trade alliance ever, one that opens long-protected markets and ends thousands of tariffs. But differences linger on pharmaceutical drugs, autos and more.

Still, the cautious optimism was enough to elicit bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill that the talks here are moving too fast toward agreement.

Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress’s two committees with jurisdiction over trade — the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees — cautioned against a hasty deal in a letter to Mr. Froman and to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the committees’ chairmen, and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, the panels’ ranking Democrats, demanded greater communication with Congress and “stakeholders,” including business, labor and consumer groups.

Tillis: Tobacco Carve-Out Could Kill TPP in the Senate

Oct 1st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/tillis-tobacco-carve-out-could-kill-tpp-in-the-senate/

North Carolina’s Senate delegation has renewed warnings over a proposal to leave the U.S. tobacco industry unprotected in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and one member is warning he could muster the votes to derail the proposed agreement.

It would take only a simple majority to pass legislation approving of any final TPP deal through the Senate, thanks to the revival of Trade Promotion Authority earlier this year, a measure that was the result of common ground between President Barack Obama and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Senate voted 60-38 to pass the fast-track authority legislation in June. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a presidential hopeful, missed the vote, though he has supported free trade.

“I think if Sen. Rubio had been in [attendance], he probably would have voted for it, so there were 61 votes for TPA. I think there are easily more than a dozen votes that could go the other way on TPP, if they try to force this precedent,” North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis said in an interview with CQ Roll Call.

Doing the math, if all supporters of TPA otherwise supported TPP, that could bring the deal down below the 50 votes needed to pass in the Senate, with the possibility of a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

But of course given the importance of the tobacco industry to Kentucky, the home state of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, there’s no telling if a deal with such a carve-out would get real consideration in the Senate at all.

“Sen. McConnell has said that if we move down the path of a carve-out, that he will be one of the people to lead the opposition. We’re talking about a provision in the TPP that’s unlike any provision in past trade agreements, at least in recent history, if ever. And it’s carving out a specific agricultural product, in this case tobacco,” Tillis. “It sets a precedent that we think could be problematic in TTIP and trade negotiations with African countries.”

The offices of Tillis and senior North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard M. Burr issued a statement Thursday indicating the United States had proposed such a carve-out provision. Negotiations have been ongoing in Atlanta.

“Over the last seven years, this Administration has consistently picked winners and losers by rigging the rules in favor of the organizations and industries they like best,” Burr said in a statement. “Agricultural trade is critical to our nation’s economy and every sector of that industry creates jobs across the board. It is imperative that all of U.S. agriculture is treated fairly.”

TPP Carve Out for Tobacco Shows Core Flaws in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)

Oct 1st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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Big Tobacco Eyes Easing Restrictions Via TTIP

Sep 5th, 2015
by Editor.
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http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/21526-big-tobacco-eyes-easing-restrictions-via-ttip

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” — John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962

If Kennedy was right, then the United States and its partners in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) must be very afraid indeed of their people.

Despite a promise made only weeks ago by the EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström to “publish detailed and extensive reports of the negotiations,” key documents recording details of negotiations between Big Tobacco and the EU were heavily redacted before being posted on the official EU website.

Virtually every word of the documents recording correspondence with and minutes of meetings with tobacco lobbyists and representatives of the governments of the United States, Japan, and the European Union was blacked out before being made available online.

In one example typical of the amount of pre-publication editing, a 14-page letter from British American Tobacco revealed fewer than five percent of the text. What was visible was little more than the written version of small talk.

Another egregious example of what the EU and U.S. trade representatives consider “access” and “transparency” is a single page memo of a meeting with lobbyists working for Philip Morris. In that offering to openness, even the date was redacted!

Activists in Europe have requested the full record of these meetings, supposing that they would reveal efforts by multinational tobacco conglomerates to include revocations of national (American, Japanese, and European) restrictions on the advertising, buying, and selling of tobacco.

An EU watchdog organization specializing in monitoring corporate lobbying is preparing to file a complaint with an EU government agency to force Big Tobacco and the representatives of the TTIP member nations to expose to the people of all interested countries the full, unredacted record of these critical conversations.

Regardless of the true purpose of these meetings, the fact that the participants want them kept secret is telling.

What is certainly not secret is the fact that U.S. law will be abrogated by whatever agreements the trade negotiators work out in secret with the tobacco industry and other segments of big business that see an opportunity to circumvent the Constitution and promulgate new, more favorable, less restrictive regulations.

Constitutionalists in America and friends of liberty and economic freedom on both sides of the Atlantic are fully aware that the TTIP is not to the liking of any right thinking person.

Speaking of the damage to representative, republican government lurking in the TTIP, The New American’s senior editor, William F. Jasper, writes:

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) proposes to begin “deep and comprehensive” integration between the 28 member states of the European Union and the United States. Over the course of the past several years, we have published many articles detailing the dangers posed by these (still officially secret) agreements. We are bringing together here, in abbreviated form, 10 of those reasons why every American — whether identifying as Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Tea Party, liberal, conservative, or constitutionalist — should oppose both of these proposals.

Jasper goes on to list 10 reasons to oppose the TTIP.

It is that word “integration,” though, that should evoke the greatest resistance from Americans and Europeans who understand our common legacy of individual liberty and the trouble that is caused by political consolidation.

Again, Jasper’s analysis is noteworthy:

The TPP/TTIP architects are drawing from the “success” of the European Union. In the development of the European Union — from its origin as the European Coal and Steel Community to the Common Market to the European Community to, finally, the EU — this subversive mutational process has been referred to as “broadening and deepening.” Broadening (or “widening”) refers to the constant expansion through addition of new member-states; deepening refers to the constant creation of new supranational institutional structures and continuous expansion and usurpation by regional authorities of powers and jurisdiction that previously were exercised by national, state, and local governments. The “living,” “evolving” treaties and agreements of the EU have eviscerated the national sovereignty of the EU member-states and increasingly subjugated them to unaccountable rulers in Brussels under the rubric of “integration,” “harmonization,” “an ever closer union,” “convergence,” “pooled sovereignty,” “interdependence,” and “comprehensive cooperation.”

Of course, the most relevant and revealing question is why would negotiators — corporate and government — continue trying so hard to conceal the content of their negotiations if the deal were good for Americans?

In his exposé, Jasper points out that that “transparency” deception isn’t confined to the European politicians:

The Obama administration has audaciously claimed that the TPP and TTIP processes are “completely transparent,” and President Obama has publicly claimed to be peeved by charges (false charges, he says) that there is any secrecy involved. But the president is talking utter nonsense, if facts mean anything. It is a fact that after more than three years of (secret) negotiations, the administration still has not made the draft texts of either of the agreements available to the public.

When it comes to keeping Americans in the dark about multinational, unconstitutional trade deals, Obama has proven himself quite capable of cooking up some whoppers:

In a press conference attended by this reporter in December 2013, it was admitted that in the official document outlining the deal, the Obama administration makes clear that an agreement will not be chiefly focused on matters related to international trade, but rather “behind-the-border” (read: domestic) policies such as health, environmental, and monetary policy. As with so many of the other panoply of recent trade deals, multinational corporations operating within the United States and the EU are achieving quasi-governmental power and using that authority to limit the ability of U.S. and EU courts to enforce domestic laws, particularly those that the corporate interests deem detrimental to their bottom line.

If the globalist and corporate interests in the United States and Europe successfully silence the outrage of the opposition on both sides of the Atlantic and achieve adoption of the agreements, then the integration of the United States with regional blocs in the Pacific and Atlantic will rush headlong toward completion and the ultimate surrender of sovereignty will ride up rapidly on its heels.

As it stands today, despite the redactions, it appears that the right of Americans to elect those empowered to make laws is being repealed by corporate lobbyists meeting safely behind a thick veil of secrecy.

 

Could Tobacco Carveout Kill TPP?

Sep 2nd, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/could-tobacco-carveout-kill-tpp/

By Matthew Fleming and Niels Lesniewski

The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s rocky road in Congress faces a fresh threat from tobacco-state senators.

A brief trip down memory lane: Trade Promotion Authority passed with 62 votes in June, paving the way for a simple-majority threshold for the 12-nation trade deal.

But to get there, TPA required legislative jujitsu packaged with other bills, complex vote sequences and a ping-pong with the House to draw enough votes.

TPA endured one Democratic filibuster. It dealt with a messy human trafficking provision as well as language combating currency manipulation. It sustained vociferous opposition from most Democrats and unions and Republican opposition to the relinquishment of Congressional power.

And despite all of that, it’s tobacco’s status as a significant cash crop in Kentucky that could snuff out TPP in the end.

Reuters reported the administration had been considering allowing tobacco to be carved out of the investor-state dispute settlement, which, among other things, would give tobacco companies little protection against stiff regulation by trade partners, like Australia’s ban on branded cigarette packs.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, along with Republican Sens. Richard M. Burr and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have repeatedly protested even the vague notion of a provision targeting tobacco.

Both in person and through correspondence, McConnell has pressed U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman throughout the negotiations to ensure there is no provision targeting tobacco, even citing the crop’s role in “important biomedical research.”

“As you know, I am very optimistic about the potential for Kentucky’s manufacturing workers and farmers — including its thousands of tobacco growers — to benefit from new export opportunities facilitated by a completed TPP agreement,” McConnell wrote in a July 30 letter to Froman. “It is essential as you work to finalize the TPP, you allow Kentucky tobacco to realize the same economic benefits and export potential other U.S. agricultural commodities will enjoy with a successful agreement.”

Needless to say, not many things happen in the Senate if the majority leader doesn’t want them to happen, and he’s calling tobacco protections “essential.”

It’s unclear where Kentucky’s junior senator stands: Rand Paul, a Republican running for reelection as well as the GOP presidential nomination. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Burr, who sits on the Finance Committee, which includes trade in its jurisdiction, told CQ Roll Call he’d received assurances from Froman that tobacco would not be excluded from protections in the deal.

Burr, who took the strongest position out of the three senators, asked again from Froman for reassurance that tobacco would be treated differently and vowed to do everything possible to derail the trade legislation if tobacco isn’t protected.

“I was told it wouldn’t be in there, that I didn’t need to worry about it,” Burr told CQ Roll Call. “And that was before I cast a crucial vote on TPA, which changed the [vote threshold] from 60 to 51. I made a promise to him before that if it was in there I’d do everything in my power to kill the TPP. And I will.”

Tillis argued in a letter to Froman in early August that a tobacco carveout would set a dangerous precedent for future trade deals and could scare away would-be supporters of the deal.

“A number of my colleagues share my view that the TPP can be a net positive in the long run,” Tillis wrote. “I am confident, however, that the path toward ratification will be significantly endangered if the administration or one of our trading partners impose their biases by targeting specific industries for exclusion.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representative wouldn’t speak directly to the carveout in a statement to CQ Roll Call, saying only that “We are working proactively to promote the interests of American farmers and preventing discrimination against them, while ensuring that the FDA and health authorities of other countries can implement tobacco regulations to protect public health.”

EU-Tobacco industry redaction revelations must not go unchallenged, warns health NGO

Sep 1st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/opinion/eu-tobacco-industry-redaction-revelations-must-not-go-unchallenged-warns-health-ngo

Written by Florence Berteletti on 1 September 2015 in Opinion

The row over the European Commission’s release of heavily redacted documents documenting its relationship with the tobacco industry is just ‘another dirty drop in an already murky pool’, argues Florence Berteletti.

The adoption of the EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive should be considered a victory for public health.

However, it also marked the end of five years of controversial lobbying practices by the tobacco industry, which included a multitude of well-documented unsavoury events.

One would have hoped that in the aftermath of these events, the European Commission would have learnt some lessons and would now be dealing with the tobacco industry in a different manner.

But no, even when confronted with the worst lobbying practices, the Commission remains resolute in continuing to deal with the tobacco industry as if it were any other, despite Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which states that “… Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry …”

The EU and its member states have all ratified the framework convention which entered into force almost ten years ago. Being party to the convention, the EU has an obligation to protect its policy setting and law making from the tobacco industry’s commercial and other vested interests.

Instead, when the Commission’s Secretary General, Catherine Day, was asked to release documents related to a series of meetings between her team and the tobacco industry during negotiations over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), she stated: “Whilst I fully recognise the importance of transparency in enabling citizens to follow trade negotiations, I take the view that this public interest does neither outweigh the public interest in protecting the Commission’s international relations and decision-making process, nor the commercial interests of the companies in question in this case.”

Let us not forget that through the framework convention, the world’s governments and the EU have, with the backing of the WHO, agreed that the tobacco industry should be judged separately from other industries. One-size-fits-all no longer works; the tobacco industry is different!

The fiasco related to the cover-up of the documents between Commission officials and the tobacco industry during the negotiations over the proposed TTIP treaty is another dirty drop in an already murky pool.

The lack of transparency illustrated by the heavily redacted documents provided to Corporate Europe Observatory is shocking.

How long will we, citizens and MEPs, continue to be duped in this way? Even if I am aware that the EU is the biggest trading bloc in the world and that the commission is interested in keeping it that way during the TTIP negotiations, it should not be done at any cost.

Over the years, Europe has been at the forefront of efforts to end the tobacco pandemic. We have made important strides to establish good policy and law which has helped reduce the burden tobacco places on our societies. In this, we should not be let down by today’s commission.

The EU bears a special responsibility with regards to tobacco control. Why? Because the tobacco pandemic was created by us and much of ‘Big Tobacco’ is still headquartered in Europe.

We need to recognise that we need to do better. I hope that the Europe will not let the current state of affairs go unchallenged and will continue to demand full transparency of meetings between the tobacco industry and the commission. This is the least we can do.

About the author
Florence Berteletti is director of Smoke free partnership, the Brussels-based tobacco control and policy research group

The promised ‘transparency’ around TTIP has been a sham

Aug 31st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/31/transparency-ttip-documents-big-business

Sven Giegold

The most important documents about the TTIP talks are unavailable to us MEPs as well as the public – and it suits big business to keep it that way.

Are you concerned about the implication of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)? Don’t worry! Only this month, the EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström promised another offensive on TTIP transparency: even more documents from the negotiations would be made available.

Her promise was put to the test only a few days later: the corporate transparency nerds of Corporate Europe Observatory finally received documents on exchanges between the tobacco lobby and the Brussels institution concerning TTIP and the EU-Japan trade talks. The punchline of the story? Most of the documents were redacted. An exercise in black humour, in the most literal sense possible. A picture of the blackened documents received thousands of shares and likes on social media since.

This rather amusing episode demonstrates the secrecy that still pervades the trade deals. Certainly, the EU commission has responded to the wave of criticism by civil society organisations against TTIP. A long list of documents, which they had previously kept secret, was published on its website. But the most important TTIP documents are still unavailable. No one knows what the US government is really asking from Europe. This is why many positive as well as negative claims cannot be substantiated, and exaggerations from supporters and adversaries of TTIP dominate the debate. Wikileaks’s offer of a €100,000 reward for the first person to leak the most secret documents is therefore highly welcome.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of focusing too much on TTIP alone, though: not even the EU’s negotiation mandates for most ongoing bilateral trade negotiations are public.

Wikileaks’s offer of a €100,000 reward for the first person to leak the most secret documents is welcome.

Unfortunately, most politicians in the European parliament are as much in the dark as ordinary citizens. We MEPs may get access to a few more documents in the parliament’s reading room than those searching the EU commission’s website. Nevertheless, the most important ones containing the demands of the US government are kept secret, even from MEPs. Even worse, although there are thousands of pages of documents, readers are not allowed to take any notes. Non-native English-speaking MEPs are further deterred by highly technical trade-law jargon. And while we could employ staff who are better trained to read the documents, they are not allowed to access the reading rooms. Therefore, the right of access to documents for MEPs is largely a sham. A real understanding of what is going on is only achieved through the actual publication of documents.

Green MEPs have consistently demanded that full transparency of trade negotiation should be made a precondition for their progress. I simply do not understand that – in particular – conservative, liberal and socialist colleagues applaud the continuation of negotiations that they cannot effectively control.

In order to regain credibility and public trust, the European Commission should end secrecy in trade negotiations and publish all important documents and in particular all negotiation mandates.

As tempting as it may be to assume that this lack of transparency is solely an EU phenomenon, it is not. International deals have always been negotiated in darkness. This is why not even Europhobic governments such as the Conservatives in the UK have complained credibly about the lack of TTIP transparency. Otherwise it would become too evident that their own international negotiations are hidden behind the same veil of opacity. The European parliament continues to be the only important political space where representatives from different countries negotiate international law under the eyes of the public. This is a historic achievement in building international democracy, of which Europe can be truly proud.

Beyond the lack of transparency, the real trouble with TTIP and the EU’s multitude of bilateral trade deals is not in the method, but in substance. Europe should put its weight behind a multilateral trading system based on open markets, fairness, sustainability and democracy. An equitable reform of the World Trade Organisation rules is clearly better for business and ethics than lots of bilateral trade and investment treaties. It is a myth that the WTO will never progress. The WTO trade talks could succeed if EU member states were ready to end unfair privileges, such as unsustainable agricultural subsidies and an obsession with intellectual property rights even in the poorest countries.

TTIP, CETA and other bilaterals are much more than traditional trade agreements. They are deals aimed at harmonising or mutually recognising regulations and standards for goods and services. This touches the very heart of our democracies in Europe. Certainly international harmonisation of technical standards can enhance efficiency and cut red tape. A TTIP limited to technical standards and their application only could be positive.

But when it comes to values-based choices, democracies must be free to change the level of regulation. Unfortunately, TTIP and co are about the most valuable standards in our societies, such healthy food, stable financial markets or chemical safety. European democracy should be able to increase environmental, social and consumer rights without having to find agreement with trading partners or to put its own businesses into a competitive disadvantage.

Europe must remain free to develop the common market into a space of high standards for consumers, workers and the environment. Blocking this is likely to be the real motive behind the big business lobby’s obsession with TTIP and co. Europe is big enough to sustain a high level of social, consumer, health and consumer rights even in a globalising world. No transnational company wants to stop selling to the European common market. Therefore, Europeans hold in their hand a powerful tool for greening global business. This democratic tool we must not give up for the small potential benefits of bilateral trade deals negotiated behind a veil of secrecy.

EU: Is your borough a no-TTIP zone? Make it happen

Aug 31st, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-7d13-EU-Is-your-borough-a-no-TTIP-zone-Make-it-happen#.VeQBwOTotCE

Local opposition offers new hope, writes KEVIN SMITH

POLITICIANS in both Brussels and Westminster have taken great pains to try to brush off people’s many concerns about the toxic EU-US trade deal being pushed through. But a new front is emerging in the battle against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This front is harnessing the energy of grassroots groups to push local councils to oppose the corporate power grab TTIP represents. In Britain and across Europe, TTIP-free zones are popping up.

It may be seen as a purely symbolic gesture to get your local council to declare itself a TTIP-free zone. After all, these councils don’t have a direct say in whether or not the deal would be passed. But there is political value in creating pressure in this manner — it’s a powerful expression of grassroots opposition that MPs and MEPs might otherwise not be exposed to.

But TTIP-free zones help highlight the effect TTIP would have on the powers of local councils. TTIP could also affect existing powers granted to local authorities such as planning. The decision of Lancashire County Council to deny planning permission for fracking in the local area is the sort of decision that would be harder to make under TTIP — first because such a decision could be challenged in the corporate courts of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system, and second because of the pressure to “harmonise” energy regulations.

The provision of local public services and procurement could also be affected. Current EU rules allow for environmental and social considerations in awarding contracts. For example, local governments can decide to buy only fairtrade or organic produce. Local authorities are also allowed to ensure that procurement benefits small and medium-sized businesses in the area. For instance, a number of cities, including Manchester and Glasgow, have become sustainable food cities and are trying to use more locally sourced, sustainable food in the public sector.

This could all be threatened under TTIP because the European Commission, keen to access US local markets by getting rid of “Buy America” schemes across the Atlantic, has said it wants TTIP to open local procurement to greater competition. This means that procurement could be constrained far more by price alone — giving US multinationals more access to markets at the expense of the local economy and the environment. Official EU estimates are that TTIP will induce a 25-50 per cent liberalisation of government procurement.

So it’s not surprising that in a short space of time, 19 local councils across Britain have, to some extent, declared themselves TTIP-free zones, including Sheffield, Glasgow and Bradford city councils. Chas Booth, a Green Party councillor for Leith, Edinburgh, which is one of those 19 councils, said: “In Edinburgh, we are proud of initiatives such as the Edinburgh Guarantee, which aims to ensure employment or training for school leavers. Likewise the Edible Edinburgh initiative aims to encourage local and seasonal food. These are just two of the possible targets from corporate lawyers if TTIP goes through unchallenged.”

And it’s not just Britain that’s worried. In Austria, Germany, France and Belgium there are significant numbers of TTIP-free zones being declared by local authorities. When negotiators in Brussels leave their meetings they immediately walk out into the Brussels municipality which is itself a TTIP-free zone. There are 39 no-TTIP councils in Spain and a good covering in northern Italy. This is a Europe-wide movement of local resistance to the corporate power grab that TTIP represents.

There still a long way to go. There are over 400 local councils of different kinds in Britain, so there are a lot of opportunities for local groups concerned about TTIP to raise the issue. Fortunately Global Justice Now has worked with public-sector union Unison to produce a campaign pack consisting of briefings, posters, leaflets, badges, stickers and a sample motion for you to use asking your local council to become a TTIP-free zone. They’re free and can be ordered from bit.ly/1egBFRL.

The biggest threat of TTIP has always been to democracy — the threat that corporations could have more say about what we eat, what we wear and how we structure our societies. So it’s fitting that one of the most exciting forms of resistance happening right now is happening within local democracy, which is less impeded by the corporate lobbying that’s so prevalent in Brussels and Westminster. Get in touch with your local councillors about becoming a TTIP-free zone and let us know how you get on.

Blocking other countries’ anti-smoking efforts is wrong

Aug 30th, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.kentucky.com/2015/08/30/4011813/blocking-other-countries-anti.html

The United States should not stand in the way of other countries trying to protect themselves from the No. 1 cause of preventable death.

But that’s just what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are demanding as the Obama administration negotiates the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Kentuckian McConnell and others in Congress are defending the continued use of trade agreements to block anti-smoking measures — and brandishing one of their all-time favorite political props: the American tobacco farmer.

It’s safe to assume, however, that their larger concern is the cigarette makers that pour millions of dollars into politics and have made McConnell the Senate’s leading recipient of tobacco-industry money.

McConnell and his allies insist that tobacco should be treated in trade deals like any other agricultural commodity and warn that allowing tobacco to be singled out will put other commodities and industries at risk in the future.

This logic has one big problem: Tobacco is not like any other agricultural commodity or, for that matter, any other legal product. Tobacco stands alone because, used as directed, it will kill you.

If current trends hold, in 15 years, a whopping 85 percent of the projected 8 million people who will die annually from tobacco-related diseases will be in poor or low-income countries, according to the World Health Organization.

The tobacco industry has moved aggressively into the developing world as Americans and Europeans shun smoking.

Luring customers with massive advertising campaigns, the industry also uses trade and investment agreements to beat back public health and education measures, such as warning labels and higher taxes, that have reduced smoking here.

Under past agreements, anti-smoking measures can be challenged and struck down as barriers to free trade.

The expensive prospect of tangling with the industry was enough to back down poor countries such as Togo and Namibia.

Even New Zealand and Canada retreated from tobacco regulations after trade litigation threats. And Australia is embroiled in defending its cigarette-packaging requirements in a legal dispute brought by Philip Morris International.

No wonder at least some of the 11 other TPP countries want an exclusion protecting their anti-smoking efforts from challenge under the trade agreement’s dispute-resolution clause.

McConnell, a TPP booster, has been successfully pushing against a tobacco exclusion and renewed his objections in a July 30 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

Like most trade deals, the TPP is being negotiated in secret, so the U.S. position is unclear. Politico has reported that the U.S. is open to a provision protecting antismoking regulations.

Let’s be clear: No one’s talking about limiting trade or tobacco exports, in leaf or cigarette form. Other countries seek only autonomy to combat smoking’s health and financial costs through widely accepted public health policies.

Kentucky exports about $300 million worth of tobacco leaf annually.

The 15 percent of Kentucky growers who stayed in the business have long been aware of the market risks. After receiving $5 billion through the tobacco settlement and $10 billion as compensation for the end of quotas, American farmers who decided to keep growing tobacco did so with their eyes wide open.

The 1998 tobacco settlement also compensated states for caring for sick smokers. Kentucky has invested half of its settlement in agriculture diversification, to help free farmers from having to financially depend on poisoning other people’s children.

TTIP deal: Business lobbyists dominate talks at expense of trade unions and NGOs

Aug 28th, 2015
by Editor.
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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ttip-deal-business-lobbyists-dominate-talks-at-expense-of-trade-unions-and-ngos-31485109.html

Green MEP Molly Scott Cato: This is a corporate discussion, not a democratic one.

European Commission officials have held hundreds of meetings with lobbyists to discuss the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty – yet only around one in ten is with public interest groups.

The world’s biggest companies in finance, technology, pharma, tobacco and telecoms are dominating discussions with the EU executive body’s trade department responsible for the proposed EU-US free trade treaty, which could become the biggest such deal ever made.

Between January 2012 and February 2014, as TTIP discussions began, the Commission’s trade department (DG Trade) had 597 behind-closed-door meetings with lobbyists to discuss the negotiations, according to internal Commission files obtained by research group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

There were 528 meetings (88 per cent) with business lobbyists while only 53 (9 per cent) were with groups such as trade unions and NGOs. The remainder were with other parties such as public institutions and academics.

European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström took office in November last year promising a “fresh start” for the TTIP negotiations. More civil society involvement and listening to public concerns was her “top priority”, she said. Yet in her first six months in office Ms Malmström, her Cabinet and the Director General of DG Trade had 121 one-on-one private lobby meetings in which TTIP was discussed.

CEO said 100 of these declared meetings (83 per cent) were with business lobbyists – but only 20 (17 per cent) were held with public interest groups. The other meeting was with a standard setting institution. Although the EU has a transparency register for lobbyists it is only voluntary and CEO revealed that one in five corporate groups lobbying DG Trade on TTIP are not on it.

Politicians have joined campaigners in calling for greater transparency in the Commission’s TTIP negotiations after The Independent published the heavily redacted correspondence between ‘Big Tobacco’ companies British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris obtained by CEO.

Green MEP Molly Scott Cato said: “The censoring that the Commission has undertaken regarding its discussions with big tobacco reaffirms the secrecy surrounding these negotiations and is symbolic of the way MEPs, the European Parliament and European citizens are being treated.

“Looking through the smoke haze we can see why these documents appear blacked out. Nine out of ten lobby contacts during the preparatory phase of the TTIP negotiations were with companies and corporate lobby groups. Corporations are effectively co-writing the treaty. Yet the vast majority of citizens are against TTIP.

“A worrying aspect of this particular cover-up is that tobacco control policies are vital for public health. We know that Big Tobacco have used comparable trade treaties to take legal action against Australia and Uruguay as those nation have attempted to take action in the interests of public health.”

BAT, the world’s second largest tobacco group with brands in 180 countries, spends between 1.5m and 1.75m euros a year employing seven lobbyists in the EU. Philip Morris spends between 1.25m and 1.5m on employing six lobbyists, although not all working full-time on EU-related activities.

Yet even that spend is dwarfed by companies such as European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations and ExxonMobil Petroleum and Chemical spend even more on lobbying – 5m euros each annually, according to the register.

By contrast the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention NGO spends less than 10,000 euros a year employing two lobbyists in Brussels in a part-time basis. It survives with the help of a 200,000 euros grant from the EU.

Politicians are only allowed to read documents relating to TTIP in a secure European Parliament restricted reading room. They are also required to sign a 14-page document ultimately promising not to share the information with their constituents.

Ms Scott Cato described the experience earlier this year comparing it to “a scene from a James Bond film”.

She said: “I don’t feel what I was granted access to contained the important details. Key information seems to have been retracted; there was little of interest. But what I did see did not leave me with any sense of reassurance, either that the process of negotiating this trade deal is democratic, or that the negotiators are operating on behalf of citizens. It reconfirmed that this is a corporate discussion, not a democratic one.”

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