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from the good-news-for-some-bad-news-for-others dept.
EU ministers demand complete restart of the controversial trade deal that has sparked mass protests across the continent. European Union ministers today admitted that a giant EU-US trade deal is dead in its current form, with drastic change needed to salvage any hope of a deal going ahead.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] has sparked a widespread backlash and now lies in tatters in the wake of massive protests across the continent.
Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said that the pact now has, "such negative connotations", that the best hope was to "completely relaunch with a new name after the US elections. Mitterlehner also demanded "more transparency and clearer objectives." Negotiations for the free-trade zone have so far been held behind closed doors.
Slovak economy minister Peter Ziga, was similarly pessimistic, saying that a "new start or some new approach [was] needed, while EU trade commissioner " Cecilia Malmstroem said the likelihood of a deal was "becoming smaller and smaller", as she entered the talks.
Several EU representatives blamed US intransigence for the gridlock. The deal now has "only a small chance of success unless the United States starts to give a bit of ground," Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said.
Public services, especially the NHS [National Health Service], are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe's public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS. The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to The Huffington ost, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table
[...] The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment. Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @11:07PM
You are missing the point.
This was a toxic "investor rights" agreement (like the TPPA) which had little to do with trade and more to do with strong-arming countries into having less control of their own economic laws while empowering multi-nationals to be able to sue said countries.
It is good its failed and I hope the TPPA goes the same way.
But as they are saying, they will simply "rebrand" it and ram it through with better PR. As far as they are concerned the problem is the marketing, not the agreement.
And they will get it and it will be terrible for everyone but the super wealthy...as per usual.
But since modern society is now psychotically devoted to farming humans and the environment for power and wealth to the exclusion of almost everything else it wont matter either way - its only a matter of time.
The robots are coming and then things get really interesting....
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday September 26 2016, @01:56AM
Where is the "+1 Scary" moderation?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday September 26 2016, @02:00AM
It's like the TPP: take away the rights of governments to protect it's citizens, take away citizens rights to protect themselves, take away farmers rights to seeds they can share that aren't patented, shut down government/public funded news sights (so the only news we get is corporate directed 'news' and we no longer hear about the bad stuff like the TPP), force bee killing pesticides on us and if we take it off the market the corporation can sue our government for "loss of profits" (fuck those bees, we're losing profit!!!!).......
The bad out ways any good there could be. Here's hoping Trump wins, and the US closes it's borders to imports and people and builds a huge wall all around the fucking country, and then maybe the Canadian government can then make a Human Trade Pact with Europe, where they and we benefit, and there is more involved than just profit!!
Just plain mad at the way the world is going... when the dollar means more than people, then WTF?!?!?
Go USA!!!.... far from the rest of us.
Sheeeeeeit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---