EU-US Trade Negotiations Not Transparent: New British parliamentary report on TTIP highlights its dangers - by Polly Jones

TTIP

With just a few days left before the British Parliament dissolves ahead of the general election, a flurry of select committees are publishing reports on inquiries which have been held in recent months. Among them is the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee’s report on the Transatlantic Trade and investment Partnership (TTIP), published yesterday.

I gave evidence to the TTIP inquiry on behalf of Global Justice Now.

TTIP is an ambitious neoliberal trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and USA. Its purpose is to create new trading opportunities for EU and US business by reducing tariffs, removing unnecessary regulation, liberalising some sectors and giving new protection for investors.

The controversy around TTIP is about what regulation is deemed unnecessary, which sectors will be liberalised and that business will benefit at the expense of governments.

The gravity of these concerns has ignited a furious public campaign on TTIP from trade unions, environmental organisations, international development groups and NHS campaigners, united in their call for the negotiations to stop.

The findings of the BIS select committee report vindicate the public’s concerns.

Many of the arguments for TTIP rest on the benefits it will bring to the UK, European and US economy, often breaking this down to a £400 benefit to every UK family every year. The economic models used to churn out these figures are fundamentally flawed (http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2013/12/the-false-promise-of-eu-us-trade-talks/) and present a best case scenario which would not deliver any benefits until 2027 and then only £2 per person a week - equivalent to a packet of fishfingers.

The 11 British MPs from across the political spectrum find that “it is impossible at this stage to quantify those benefits in any meaningful way”. They are critical of the figures the UK government uses to promote TTIP and instruct it to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the likely economic benefits of various possible outcomes on TTIP.

Read more: New parliamentary report on TTIP highlights its dangers | openDemocracy

ISIS : Turkey MPs back Iraq-Syria deployment

Turkey's parliament has backed a motion that could allow its military to enter Iraq and Syria to join the campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants.

The resolution - passed with a three-quarters majority - will also permit foreign troops to use Turkish territory for the operation.

Turkey has been under pressure to play a more active role in the US-led fight.
The government dropped its reluctance to combat IS militants directly after the release of 46 hostages last month.

The Turkish citizens had been held by IS in northern Iraq.

However, Turkey still remains wary of retaliation by IS and also fears helping Kurds, who are fighting the militants. Turkey has fought a long civil war with its Kurdish minority.

Read more: BBC News - Islamic State: Turkey MPs back Iraq-Syria deployment

NSA Scandal requires EU Cyber-Barriers and "foreign Telecoms need to meet EU standards -- by Susan Crawford

The smooth flow of online communication and commerce between Europe and the U.S. is at risk of interruption, thanks in part to naked opportunism on the part of European telecommunications giants. If the governments involved fail to keep online barriers between the continents low, the Internet’s potential to be an engine of global economic growth will be constrained.

Take Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) (DTE), the largest provider of high-speed Internet access and wireless services in Germany and the largest telecommunications organization in the European Union. To expand, the company will have to acquire additional communications companies; in order to do so, it hopes to free itself from the German government’s 32 percent ownership in the company. It has also expressed a desire to diversify into non-telecommunications lines of business, such as technical-services delivery.

The snooping scandal at the U.S. National Security Agency may help Deutsche Telekom achieve both these goals. T-Systems International GmbH, the company’s 29,000-employee-strong distribution arm for information-technology solutions, has been losing money selling systems-integration and data-processing services. Now, in response to customers’ loss of trust in American services, Reinhard Clemens, T-Systems’ chief executive officer, says he wants to refocus the company on providing cloud services.

Deutsche Telekom has also proposed to help Europe avoid NSA surveillance by creating “Schengen area routing,” a network for the 26 European countries that have agreed to remove passport controls at their borders. This network would supposedly allow these nations to securely exchange data among themselves. Conveniently, the Schengen area does not include the U.K., which is now known to be closely cooperating with the NSA.

Deutsche Telekom undoubtedly thinks that it will be able to collect fees from network operators in other countries that want their customers’ data to reach Deutsche Telekom’s customers -- and that the company has the market power to raise those tolls ever higher. As things stand, networks already try to avoid Deutsche Telekom’s wires when routing Internet traffic to German customers because the company refuses to swap traffic on a no-payment basis -- the common practice of competitive carriers around the world.

With hundreds of lobbyists in Berlin, Deutsche Telekom can see to it that if any German legislator is asked what to do about the NSA problem, he or she will respond with “Secure routing of traffic.” Surely this secure Schengen area routing would be even smoother if Deutsche Telekom owned more of the telecommunications operators involved.

Meanwhile, European telecom regulators, anxious to help European companies avoid the risk of being bought up by Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. or Carlos Slim, the Mexican wireless monopolist, are encouraging consolidation -- with Deutsche Telekom’s full support. “Now is the right time” for consolidation, Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann said in November.

Read more: NSA Scandal May Help Build Cyber-Barriers - Bloomberg

Netherlands to wait for a UN decision over Syria

The Members of the Netherlands Foreign Affairs Commission of the House of Representatives discussed Syria Thursday and they took a dim view of a possible military intervention in Syria without getting the support of UN.

Netherlands will wait for a UN decision over the matter, said Foreign Minister Franciscus Timmermans.

Members of the commission also voiced thatthe Dutch Patriot missiles in Turkey can not be used for attack purposes stating they were sent to Turkey for defense purposes.

Last night the British parliament voted against British troops getting involved in Syria and in fact handed Mr. Cameron, who was in favor of the intervention, a resounding defeat.

Almere-Digest