Sir, – Brian Hayes, MEP (September 26th) 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 ("Media letting Ireland sleepwalk into further loss of sovereignty", Opinion & Analysis, September 23rd).
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. – Yours, etc,
FARREL CORCORAN,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Sir, – I read with interest the letter by Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes, outlining his defence of the TTIP and CETA, the US and Canadian trade deals with Europe.
I note that Mr Hayes has omitted to include any reference to the system of investment protection being proposed in TTIP, which will allow corporations that think their profits could be affected by new legislation to sue sovereign governments who have been democratically elected. His omission is surprising given that his party colleague, Richard Bruton, when minister for trade and enterprise, was a cheerleader for these investor courts. In fact, he actually wrote to the European Commission to ensure that they would be included in the trade deals.
In past trade deals, these investment courts have been successfully used by corporations to reverse minimum wage increases and to challenge moratoriums on fracking and nuclear energy.
I also note that Mr Hayes makes no reference to the new mechanism under TTIP known as “regulatory co-operation”. This mechanism will allow corporations to scrutinise future legislation before the public, giving them an exclusive opportunity to propose amendments or deletions to anything which is not to their liking. In other words, regulations made by and for corporations.
To Mr Hayes, this very real threat to Ireland’s sovereignty by TTIP is brushed off as paranoia. It seems sovereignty is only an issue for Fine Gael when it is a multinational corporation like Apple feeling the burn!
Mr Hayes says we should trust European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström’s assurances that food and environmental standards will not be lowered. I would rather base my judgments on the evidence to date.
Let’s take the example of endocrine disrupters, chemicals that have been proven to harm health and which the World Health Organisation refer to as a global threat. The European Commission had an explicit deadline of December 2013 to bring forward criteria to regulate these hormone-disrupting chemicals. In the spring of 2013, the indications were that the commission was on track to meet the deadline. In June 2013, following a visit from the American Chamber of Commerce to EU trade officials, the minutes of that meeting show that the US wanted the planned criteria to regulate these chemicals dropped.
Lo and behold, in July 2013 the European Commission announced that they would carry out an impact assessment of their plans to regulate endocrine disrupters, thereby delaying the process by a further two years.
The Swedish government, supported by other member states (but not the Fine Gael/Labour government) took the European Commission to court and won. The European court of Justice found that not only was the European Commission in breach of a clear obligation to legislate on these chemicals but that their use of the delay tactic was unnecessary and inappropriate as financial impact should not be taken into account when legislating on harmful products.
So, unlike Mr Hayes , I will not take the EU at its word.
And besides, if Mr Hayes is so confident that the European Commission is keeping its promises, why isn’t he calling for full transparency so we, the public, can actually check for ourselves? I suspect Mr Hayes is aware that our hard-won environmental and social protections are up for grabs and any public awareness of this might provoke the national debate he finds so objectionable.
If wanting to reduce the population’s exposure to carcinogens and environmental hazards, and wanting to ensure that the food Irish citizens eat is of the highest safety, makes me a protectionist, then I will wear that label with pride!
Citizens voicing their concerns about cheaper and lower-standard US agricultural products, and concerned by courts that are only accessible to corporations, have a right to be listened to at the national level, and not be derided as “tut-tutting’ or “moaning” by Fine Gael politicians such as Brian Hayes. – Yours, etc,
LYNN BOYLAN MEP,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.