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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: 2) by sjames on Monday September 26 2016, @03:02AM
The doctor is not otherwise unoccupied unless it's because people couldn't afford to have then look at their severe chest pain radiating down their arm. 'Grats, your pampered tushie got a band-aid and gramps got a pine box.
And why would people with money always throw all the money at it, rather than cherry-picking the urgent concerns as opposed to when they'll just pop an aspirin and wait for the edge to be taken off?
And yet the best example you could come up was exactly throwing money at a condition that is far from urgent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @04:33AM
Oh, right. All doctors that aren't working 24/7 are slacking off.
.... wait, what?
Bullshit. Doctors have variable workloads. Things happen in bursts, or in cycles. Twelve car pile-up? Yeah, it's going to be busy in the ER and the OR. College kids went home to be drunk and stupid somewhere else? It'll be quieter.
If every doctor is constantly overbooked and overworked, you have a massive systemic problem to which the answer is to get the AMA to let people educate more doctors, not prevent people from negotiating for services rendered.
Even freaking Canada had to admit that just maybe the sky wouldn't fall if a private individual and a licensed physician came to a private arrangement for care.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday September 26 2016, @05:40AM
If there really is slack time, why would you pay a Benjamin to go to the front of the non-existent line?
Meanwhile, I do hope "A Benjamin" was meant colloquially since you'll need 3 of them to get a dose of Tylenol at a hospital.