Trade: US trying to push for controversial new trade standards in trade negotiations

The US is pushing for controversial new trade standards that would grant radical new political powers to corporations, increase the cost of prescription medications and restrict bank regulation, according to two internal memos obtained by The Huffington Post.

The memos, which come from a government involved in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations, detail continued disputes in the talks over the deal. The documents reveal broad disagreement over a host of key positions, and general skepticism that an agreement can be reached by year-end. The Obama administration has urged countries to reach a deal by New Year's Day, though there is no technical deadline.

One memo, which was heavily redacted before being provided to Huffington Post, was written ahead of a new round of talks in Singapore this week. Read the full text of what HuffPost received here. (Note: Ellipses indicate redacted text. Text in brackets has been added by a third party.) Another document, a chart outlining different country positions on the text, dates from early November, before the round of negotiations in Salt Lake City, Utah. View the chart here. Huffington Post was unable to determine which of the 11 non-U.S. nations involved in the talks was responsible for the memo.


EU-Digest

The Netherlands: While Dutch Taxpayers suffer Yahoo, Dell Swell Netherlands’ euro 9.5 Trillion Tax Haven - Jesse Drucke

Inside Reindert Dooves’s home, a 17th- century, three-story converted warehouse along the Zaan canal in suburban Amsterdam, a 21st-century Internet giant is avoiding taxes.

The bookkeeper’s home office doubles as the headquarters for a Yahoo, Inc offshore unit. Through this sun-filled, white- walled room, Yahoo has taken advantage of the law to quietly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars in global profits to island subsidiaries, cutting its worldwide tax bill.

The Yahoo arrangement illustrates that the the Netherlands in the heart of a continent better known for social welfare than corporate welfare, has emerged as one of the most important tax havens for multinational companies. Now, as a deficit-strapped Europe raises retirement ages and taxes on the working class, the Netherlands’ role as a euro 9.5 ($13trillion) relay station on the global tax-avoiding network is prompting a backlash.

The Dutch Parliament has debated the fairness of its tax system this year as lawmaker from several parties, including members of the country’s governing coalition, say they want to remove a stain on the nation’s reputation.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, declared a war on tax avoidance and evasion, which it said costs the EU 1 trillion euros a year. The commission advised member states -- including the Netherlands -- to create tax-haven blacklists and adopt anti-abuse rules. It also recommended reforms that could undermine the lure of the Netherlands, and hurt a spinoff industry that has mushroomed in and around Amsterdam to abet tax avoidance.

Attracted by the Netherlands’ lenient policies and extensive network of tax treaties, companies such as Yahoo,Google Inc, Merck & Co. and Dell Inc. have moved profits through the country. Using techniques with nicknames such as the “Dutch Sandwich,” multinational companies routed 10.2 trillion euros in 2010 through 14,300 Dutch “special financial units,” according to the Dutch Central Bank. Such units often only exist on paper, as is allowed by law.

Unfortunately so far, all the politicians have done is talk and more talk. The question one would ask now is do Governments really want to change their tax structures or is it all political hogwash?

EU-Digest

Netherlands: Dutch legislators want Suriname President Bouterse, a convicted cocaine trafficker, arrested while at Mandela funeral

Suriname President Desi Bouterse

Legislators in the Netherlands have called for the government to state whether it will be making an attempt to have Suriname President Desi Bouterse arrested while he is in South Africa attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela on Sunday.

There have also been calls from an anti-Bouterse movement for the amnesty law that could provide a pardon for his role in the murders of 15 citizens in 1982 to be rescinded.

The legislators have asked the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the Foreign Minister to indicate whether the government was willing to request South Africa to arrest Bouterse and extradite him to the Netherlands to serve his jail term on cocaine trafficking charges.

Bouterse was convicted in absentia in 1999 and given an 11-year jail term.

He has consistently denied involvement in cocaine trafficking and managed to evade arrest and prison time by not travelling internationally until he became President in 2010.

Bouterse is the only head of state in the world who has been democratically elected  by a majority of the population, even though this majority was aware that he had a criminal record before they elected him. 

Obviously this does not bode too well for the image of Suriname as a whole and the quality of International laws which concern diplomatic immunity for heads of state who have criminal records.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands - Poverty: Serious rise in poverty in the Netherlands - by Alexandra Gowling

New statistics from state statistics agency CBS reveal that poverty in the Netherlands has increased sharply over the last two years, from 7,4 per cent in 2010 to 9,4 per cent in 2012.

Despite the economic crisis beginning in 2008, the full impact on household incomes has only begun to be felt over the last few years. Now, 664.000 households in the Netherlands are at risk of poverty, with a total of 1,329 million people in 2012 existing on a low income.

Estimates suggest that the poverty rate will have risen again in 2013, but less than in 2012, and decline slightly in 2014.

Adults in poverty are often employed, although of the 348.000 working poor in 2012, 165.000 were self-employed. There were also 255.000 poor social assistance benefit recipients and 79.000 people aged over 65 (i.e. retired) in poverty.

There are also more children in poverty now: over 100.000 more than in 2007. That means one in three poor people is aged under 18. In addition, people living in poverty are less likely to be immigrants to the Netherlands, with 60 per cent of people in poverty identifying as native Dutch.

Further, almost a quarter of all households in the Netherlands living below the low-income threshold in 2011 were in the Randstad, with the largest share in Amsterdam. The poverty rate has risen more in The Hague and Rotterdam than Amsterdam since 2009, however, and Rotterdam has the most poor postcode districts in the top 20.

EU-Digest

Europe’s reaction to NSA spying ‘totally inadequate, no action, nothing more than words’

EU reaction to NSA spying inadequate

So far European governments reactions to the people’s anger about NSA spying on European Citizens has been totally inadequate, says Paul Murphy, Irish Member of the European Parliament from the Socialist Party in an interview with Russian TV station RT. He says this mainly is the result of the fact that most governments have put a lid on it, as the interests of big businesses prevails.

"What it illustrates", said Murphy,  "is the deep-rooted hypocrisy of the leaders of all countries of Europe and really around the world. Whereby they are happy to criticize other people spying on themselves, but they are all engaged in this, all of the major powers in the world are engaged in massive spying against each other. But also most importantly, states are involved in spying against their own people and other peoples around the world. I think what should come out from ordinary people across Europe is a clear message that we are opposed to the building of a security state, which is what’s happening, we are opposed to this massive surveillance of people and of elective representatives, and we demand people’s right to privacy".

"I think the response of the EU has been entirely inadequate", says Murphy, "and it’s being words and nothing more than words, while they continue, for example, with the negotiations on the EU-US free-trade agreement. I think it’s because they know the whole thing is full of hypocrisy and they know they are guilty probably as much as their technical capacities allows relative to the US. And I think it’s only through developing a movement and big pressure from below that the most important issue here – people’s, individuals’ rights of privacy, individual rights not to be spied upon, that that can prevail and can become a factor in the situation"

Basically the EU Commission and the EU parliament are sitting on their hands when it comes to properly handling the NSA spying affair on EU Citizens. It is  another example of why the confidence in the political establishment of the Europe Union has reached an all-time low.

EU-Digest

EU: Why the World Needs Europe - byTony Fernandes

Unity not Eurosceptism

For some time already, wherever you are in the world, one cannot escape the question asked by many political, media and financial observers: "What is going to happen to Europe?" Source of sarcasm for some, of anxiety for many others, the continent's economic and political situation appears critical.

On the one hand, observers lament an economy which is deeply handicapped by a public debt which exceeds the continent's GDP and by unemployment rates which have become untenably high. On the other, the concern felt by observers is also triggered by a political analysis of the European situation. Frequent differences of opinion and hesitation on the part of European leaders in past years have damaged the image of the continent as much as economic problems have.

Yet, when you manage a foreign company, the image that Europe portrays is different in many respects. The continent is the most important foreign investor in many regions of the world, including South-East Asia. Of course, the European market is no longer considered dynamic but it still remains huge; the first common market in the world with 600 million people. Its citizens have considerable purchasing power, especially compared to other regions or countries which have higher growth rates.

When GDP in France and Germany averaged respectively 0% and 0.7% in 2012 compared to 6.2% and 5.6% in Indonesia and Malaysia, purchasing power per capita in these countries was respectively US$35,000 and US$40,000, compared to US$4,000 and US$15,000.

Europe remains synonymous with high-level research and strong value-added goods. A reputation based upon the transfer of skills and technologies by European industrial groups to their client countries. Of course, this can be a source of frustration for the country where such technologies are developed but the day this transfer of skills and technologies no longer occurs, or worse, occurs in the opposite direction, Europeans will have really lost the game!

When one has such comparative advantages, one shouldn't complain let alone be afraid of the future! The real problem in Europe is that its Member States seem to have lost any all ambition to act on the international stage, either individually and as a whole. You only have to observe the proliferation of negative and resigned speeches and the rise of xenophobic parties with protectionist economic programs to be convinced. Leaders and voters must be persuaded of the strength of their political project.

 By deciding to unite towards a common future when an entire part of the world was only starting to awaken, they have been a role model for the world for the past sixty years. In 1957, when Europeans created the first common market, the European Economic Community, they became a source of inspiration for the Asian world. Ten years later, the ASEAN was created, which has since succeeded in both promoting economic prosperity and strengthening political stability within the region.

When Europeans rose above their differences and succeeded in setting up the unprecedented industrial project which today produces Airbus aircraft, their partners were both envious and admiring. But this is not enough. Defense and aeronautics cannot be the sole sectors to carry the integration process forward when so much progress remains to be made in the fields of new communications technologies, renewable energy, health, and many others. We need to increase the number of pan-European industrial partnerships, invest more in research, and streamline administrative and fiscal systems. European leaders are aware of the challenges that Europe faces, they need to start tackling them.

Europe holds its destiny in its own hands. No one will come to its rescue and no one would understand if the continent did not fight for its model, liberal, democratic and based on a common vision. The crisis it is experiencing must form the starting point for a new strategy to push this model forward because, beyond its own project, Europe represents the success of a model for all countries in transition.

But by displaying weakness when faced by the main economic, diplomatic and environmental challenges of this century, Europe is likely to slowly marginalize itself, slipping from the center of the global economy toward its periphery. At a time when the crisis is now hitting the world economy as a whole, there is an urgent need for stability and leadership. Europe must contribute to this, for its own sake and the world's.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Is the Netherlands' Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) Racist ? - John McWhorter

Sinterklaas and Black Pete arrive in Almere

They’ve been on my living room shelf for a year now — wrapped chocolate candy figurines from the Netherlands of Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete. A friend who lived there for a while gave them to me in irony. Black Pete is a wooly-headed little “Negro” caricature, and in the Netherlands he is as cherished a part of the holiday scenery as elves are here in the U.S.

In fact, Zwarte Piets are depicted as elves, helping out Santa.

There is a growing movement over there to ban Black Pete. Predictably, there are those who think a mountain is made out of a molehill by people who just need to get a sense of humor. Judging the matter from over here in the U.S. is tricky, though. There are practices on race that most would consider repulsive in this country which, when done elsewhere, I am inclined to give a pass.

For example, Finnish friends have told me of attending parties in the ’90s where everybody dressed up as “black,” right down to blackface and wigs. Many will be reminded of stories of college fraternities here condemned for having “ghetto” parties, blacking up and lampooning life among black people in the inner city.

With America’s history as well as its messy present when it comes to race, clowning around in blackface at a party is obviously callous and ignorant.

Black Pete, then, is not the Dutch’s version of a Finnish teen bouncing to Jay-Z in an Afro wig. Black Pete in 2013 is a lame, thoughtless thing, carrying an implication that all of that slavery and servitude and imperialism was some kind of cartoon. Black Hollanders often feel the same way, in a country where blacks from former colonies are overrepresented in housing projects.

Who are we to judge, some might ask. I would say that a country with our colonialist history is no less responsible for judging such matters than other ones. We’ll never eradicate racism entirely. But surely we can do something about white men made up as “Negroes” dancing down the street at Christmastime — which would never happen even in our non-post-racial country.

EU-Digest