permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

[Europeans:, Sal:, Steve]

http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/eu-dropped-plans-for-safer-pesticides-because-of-ttip-and-pressure-from-us/
EU dropped plans for safer pesticides because of TTIP and pressure
from US Despite
repeated promises that the US trade agreement would not lower EU standards.

by Glyn Moody <http://arstechnica.co.uk/author/glyn_moody/> - May 25, 2015
4:42am EDT

EU plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals found in pesticides have
been dropped
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/eu-dropped-pesticide-laws-due-to-us-pressure-over-ttip-documents-reveal>
because of threats from the US that this would adversely affect
negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
<http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/ttip-explained-the-secretive-us-eu-treaty-that-undermines-democracy/>
(TTIP), according to a report in *The Guardian*. Draft EU regulations would
have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)
that have been linked to testicular cancer and male infertility
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/02/toiletries-health-impact-could-cost-millions-report-says>
.

Just after the official launch of the TTIP negotiations on 13 June 2013, a
US business delegation visited EU officials to demand that the proposed
regulations governing EDCs should be thrown out in favour of a further
"impact study." Minutes of the meeting on June 26
<http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/646/response/2513/attach/4/AmCham.zip> 
show
Commission officials saying that "although they want the TTIP to be
successful, they would not like to be seen as lowering the EU standards."
Nonetheless, the European Commission capitulated shortly afterwards.

That climbdown was despite repeated promises from the European Commission
that TTIP would not jeopardise EU health and safety standards. For example,
a Commission factsheet on Pesticides in TTIP
<http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/february/tradoc_153136.4.6%20Pesticides.pdf>
from February 2015 states: "TTIP will not lower the food safety standards
for pesticides." *The Guardian* report demonstrates that plans to
*strengthen* regulations governing EDCs were blocked, which is equivalent
to a lowering of future standards that would have been introduced had it
not been for TTIP.

As well as giving the lie to assurances that health and safety would not be
compromised in order to reach an agreement on TTIP, the European
Commission's move makes no sense from a purely economic standpoint. The
claimed benefit from an "ambitious" TTIP agreement is £100 billion in 2027
<http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/ttip-explained-the-secretive-us-eu-treaty-that-undermines-democracy/2/#h1>.
According to "the most comprehensive study of the subject yet published,"
the health costs of EDCs
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-costs-hormone-disrupting-chemicals-150bn-a-year-europe-says-study>
to Europe are between £113 billion and £195 billion (between €160 and €277
billion) every year. Tackling EDCs with more stringent safety rules could
potentially provide a far bigger boost to the EU economy than even the most
optimistic—and unrealistic—predictions for TTIP. And yet the European
Commission decided it was more important to appease the US than save money
or protect EU citizens.
This is not the first time that the European Commission has been willing to
sacrifice EU regulations in order to facilitate trade agreements. Alongside
TTIP, it has been negotiating a similar trade and investment deal with
Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
<http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/> (CETA). One of Canada's
key negotiating aims was to promote the use of its tar sands in Europe. In
2012, the EU's Fuel Quality Directive
<http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/transport/fuel.htm> (FQD) proposed
that tar sands should be given a 20 percent higher carbon value than
conventional oil. This reflected the greater pollution caused by its
production, and was designed to steer companies away from using this
particular form of fuel in the EU. However, a few weeks after CETA was
concluded, the final version of the FQD had been watered down
<http://ttip2015.eu/blog-detail/blog/FQD%20CETA%20Jadot.html>, and lacked
the earlier requirement that companies needed to account for the higher
emissions from tar sands, effectively neutering it—exactly as Canada had
demanded.