Slashdot Mirror
EU Drops Plans For Safer Pesticides After Pressure From US
An anonymous reader writes: The European Union recently published plans to ban 31 pesticides containing chemicals linked to testicular cancer and male infertility. Those potential regulations have now been dropped after a U.S. business delegation said they would adversely affect trade negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. "Just weeks before the regulations were dropped there had been a barrage of lobbying from big European firms such as Dupont, Bayer and BASF over EDCs. The chemical industry association Cefic warned that the endocrines issue 'could become an issue that impairs the forthcoming EU-US trade negotiations.'"
News like this makes me angry and sad at the same time. The problem is that it's all so complicated that one cannot really understand the matter without spending years of work and research on it, and even then a citizen only gets a subset of all information that was presented.
The chemical industry for sure had arguments and data that supported their case, in same way that the opponents of the pesticides have their arguments and data. It all comes down to spinning information and conveniently omitting some facts (for sure on either side). How anyone, who is not a subject matter expert, can make a decision in this is just beyond me.
Everything that is good for citizens is bad for TTIP and vice versa.
Tech is not only Si-tech, it is Chem-tech and Bio-tech too.
PS If your nerdiness ends by your keyboard, it is your own issue.
No, apparently US business interests are far more important.
I think it's time the rest of the world told the US: we don't give a fuck about your business interests, we care about not putting toxic crap on our foods.
"Aggressive US lobbyists" should be told the STFU or simply shot.
Free trade with the US is "we will ignore any obligations, and we will cram our laws down your throat."
If diplomacy with the US is entirely about advancing US business interests to the detriment of local industry and environment ... the response should be a big giant "fo fuck yourself".
Because the US pushes for trade deals, and then still reuses to ignore them ... things like steel subsidies, massive corn subsidies, and country of origin labeling requirements are things they've repeatedly lost in WTO arbitration.
So why the hell do countries keep putting up with this shit?
Such horseshit. It's time the rest of the world stopped giving a shit about US business interests ... because they never actually coincide with domestic interests.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the politics section. About how US business interests are over-ruling domestic environmental laws.
If you don't want to read it, don't read the politics section.
The rest of us don't care what you feel should be here or not.
Yes, aggressive lobbying form 'Merican companies like Bayer AG (oddly headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany) and the largest chemical producer in the world, BASF (again, oddly headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany).
It's really nice that the political class of the EU can rely on the old "blame the US" trick to convince Europeans to ignore their own indebtedness to European corporate interests. Always shocking to me to see propaganda work so well and so easily.
I respectfully disagree. This is an environmental issue. It is an important one but I do not feel it belongs an a tech news aggregator.
The TPP has serious technology implication in the means of enforcing IP provisions and other areas in addition to environmental issues. The main problem is though no one knows what is in it because the negotiations and text are being done in secret so, mainly, it's a structural issue of how law will be framed.
It's the deal to end all deals, where each country gets to sign away it's sovereignty. So, yeah, it's stuff that matters and completely appropriate to discuss.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I guess you win the turing test, everyone else is still wondering why you don't think an endocrine system is relevant to your existence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"