Upload
ksenia-petrovets
View
235
Download
1
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership Agreement
(TTIP)Overview of proposed Food safety,
Animal and Plant Health regulations
Long way to TTIP
1990-s – Negotiations on Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA)
2007 – Transatlantic Economic Council
2011- The United States- European Union High level Working Group on Jobs and Growth (HLWG)
June 17, 2013 – Official launch of the first round of TTIP negotiations
Primary goals
US
Increase sales of different types of
agricultural products: soy and corn
EU
Increase exports of “higher value food
products”
Main points of disagreement
Growth Hormones
Decontamination treatment
Investor-State Dispute
Settlement (ISDS)
tribunals
GIs
GMOs
No special regulations for GM
products/ absence of mandatory labeling
Regulation of GM products at every stage (pre-market
authorization – mandatory labeling –
post-monitoring)
US end of pipe regulations
EU preventive controls
Large-scale production
Decontamination
treatment + Treatment of
livestock produce with antibiotics
promoting growth
Only water can be used in processing
(“farm-to-fork” instead of
decontaminants)
Ban on hormones use
US end of pipe regulations
EU preventive controls
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) one concept, different application
EUHACCP + Traceability
USHACCP HIMP + limitation
of governmental control
How to harmonize diverse food safety standards?
To employ the same standards and methods in consumer safety regulation
orTo recognize each other’s safety regulations as
sufficient when importing goods
What progress has been achieved so far?
2014Statement of the U.S.
Agricultural Secretary: “the United States may be
unwilling to accept a TTIP agreement that allows
Europe’s current restrictions on GMOs to stand”
2015EU adopted new GMO law allowing Member States to
restrict or prohibit cultivation of already authorized at the
Union level GMOs
Evolution of the SPS Chapter proposalsLack of transparency
July 2014• Leaked Commission-proposed TTIP SPS Chapter
January 2015• First official release of the TTIP SPS Chapter
Protection of Geographical Indications
US no special protection for GIs (Aside from general protection under the Trademark Law or Certification marks regulation) // Many EU’s GIs not protected because treated as generic terms
EU strict model of protection // developed quality schemes and special registration systems
TTIP:
Latest version of EU Proposal suggests the list of 200 GIs that need to be protected at the moment of TTIP entry into force; Including 17 wine names for which TTIP must confirm exclusive protection on the US territory
“Leveling-up” WTO SPS provisions ?
WTO SPS Agreement: • Non-discrimination: MFN/NT• Harmonization• Science-based risk assessment • Equivalence
TTIP • Adopt “tolerances and maximum residue levels “ of pesticides, veterinary
drugs and food additives of the Codex Alimentarius *problem with ractopamine and
nanomaterials in food products• Animal welfare provisions – not binding
(based on “best endeavor”)
Introduction of indirect legal tools
• Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals –enabling private foreign investors to sue governments for violation of TTIP SPS provisions
• Limitation on food import inspections - “elimination of redundant control measures”
• Regulatory cooperation share of information on “planned acts”; “ trade and investment impact assessments” purport to prevent possible future disputes
The Economist article Investor-State Dispute Settlement: The Arbitration Game
“IF YOU wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half-century have done, through a process known as “investor-state dispute settlement”, or ISDS.”
TTIP Webinar Series prepared by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
• Trade rules for poultry and pork: safe for whom?
• TTIP and GMOs
• TTIP and Antimicrobial Resistance
• Trading Away Our Bees
• TTIP and Animal Welfare