Trans-Atlantic Rifts
When it comes to face-to-face meetings, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and United States
President Barack Obama have had a somewhat one-
sided relationship so far. The chancellor has been to
Washington several times, but Obama has never
been to Berlin as president, despite several
invitations.
It could finally happen in June. Obama's advisors
are mulling whether the president should visit
Berlin during his trip to Europe. There would be two
reasons to do so. First, this year marks the 50th
anniversary of former President John F. Kennedy's
legendary Berlin speech, in which he proclaimed:
"Ich bin ein Berliner." And negotiations are set to
begin this summer over a trans-Atlantic free trade
agreement between Europe and the United States,
which the president announced two weeks ago.
Industry representatives are already waxing lyrical
about the prospect of the free world, with its 800
million consumers, joining forces to form a gigantic
trading bloc with common rules. The American
Chamber of Commerce in Germany sees the
agreement as a promise of more growth, while
officials at the Federal Chancellery call it the
cheapest way to stimulate the economy. The old
industrialized countries intend to confront China's
expanding economic might by creating a shared
market of common standards, patents and laws.
But the planned trading union isn't going to be an
overnight success. Europe and the United States
face years of painful negotiations, and many critics
see the whole thing as a flight of fancy. Consumer
advocates, as well as environmental and Internet
activists, are preparing to fight the treaty with all
means at their disposal. They fear that bad
compromises will be made at the expense of
consumers in secret negotiations between the
European Commission and the Obama
administration.
"The treaty cannot fail because of chlorinated
chickens this time," says German Foreign Minister
Guido Westerwelle. He is referring to the Europeans'
distaste for US meat products that are disinfected in
chlorine baths, products that are currently banned
from importation to Europe.
Major Differences Over GM Foods
Contentious issues like this have brought down
many a trans-Atlantic agreement. They may sound
petty, but elementary questions of consumer and
citizen's rights are at stake. What do we want to eat?
How are our personal data treated in the Internet?
In recent years, very different traditions have
developed in the United States and Europe in this
regard, creating considerable potential for conflict.
For instance, there are much greater restrictions on
the sale of genetically modified food products in
Europe, while most Americans have no problem
with such products, as long as they are cheap and
look good.
The technology is now used by most US farmers,
enabling them to grow plants that are resistant to
insects and produce higher yields per hectare. Last
year, 88 percent of corn, 93 percent of soybeans and
95 percent of beets grown in the United States were
from genetically modified seed. "Transparency,
freedom of choice and the principle of foresight
cannot be sacrificed to the free movement of goods
in Europe," says Christoph Then, managing director
of Testbiotech, a non-profit association opposed to
genetic engineering.
The American farm lobby has long fought against
European trade barriers for genetically modified
potatoes and hormone-treated beef. Now the free
trade treaty will provide them with considerable
leverage for cracking the European front.
In a letter to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Max
Baucas, a Democrat senator from Montana, outlined
what he hopes to achieve in the upcoming
negotiations. His list includes EU restrictions on
genetically modified grain, the use of hormones in
cattle and "unscientific restrictions on the use of
safe feed additives like ractopamine in beef and
porks," all positions that are anathema to European
consumer advocates.
For example, American farmers use the hormone
rBST, developed by the agricultural corporation
Monsanto. The drug is intended to increase milk
production by up to 20 percent and meat yield by up
to 30 percent. But it is also suspected of causing
cancer in human beings. In addition, high-
performance cows require additional antibiotic
treatment, because their mammary glands are more
likely to become infected.
European Farmers Fear Competitive Disadvantage
"If American hormone meat reaches Europe, it will
have a considerable impact on European
producers," warns Lutz Ribbe, an agricultural expert
with the environmental organization Euronatur.
Because production is cheaper in the United States,
says Ribbe, European farmers are at a clear
competitive disadvantage.
Free trade agreements with other countries show
how justified the concerns are. In ongoing talks with
India, the EU wanted to include a section on
"sustainable development" in the agreement, but the
Indians refused. Negotiations with Canada also
stalled, partly because of disputes over agricultural
issues.
In addition to free trade for agricultural products,
the Americans want to place intellectual property
rights at the center of the upcoming trans-Atlantic
poker game. The business interests of Hollywood
and Si
produce movies and software that are coveted
worldwide but can often be copied easily. To address
the problem, the Americans already negotiated a
trade agreement with international partners and the
EU in recent years, but then the European
Parliament thwarted the effort.
The failure of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA) was the first major victory for an
international web public that had organized a major
campaign on the Internet and major demonstrations
in Warsaw, Berlin and Paris. The activists felt that
ACTA would threaten freedom on the Internet.
Jérémie Zimmermann, one of the organizers of the
anti-ACTA movement, believes the time will soon
come for new protests. The spokesman for the Paris-
based organization La Quadrature du Net can prove
that old paragraphs from the failed ACTA were
inserted into a preliminary version of the proposed
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
(CETA), which the European Commission is
currently negotiating with the Canadians and whch
could serve as a blueprint for the treaty with the
Americans.
Rift on Data Protection
"It's a favorite game of the entertainment industry to
hijack free trade agreements for their own
purposes," says Zimmermann. He sees democracy at
risk when negotiations concerning the future of all
people are conducted behind closed doors. "Millions
of citizens can be mobilized if their freedoms are
threatened," he says.
Jan Philipp Albrecht, a Green Party member of the
European Parliament, who opposed ACTA from the
start, is also pessimistic about the trans-Atlantic
free trade deal, unless national parliaments are
brought in early on. "Otherwise the free trade
agreement will collapse under opposition from
ordinary Europeans."
Albrecht, the European Parliament's rapporteur for
the proposed Data Protection Regulation, sees
considerable potential for conflict. While US
companies can use their customers' personal data
with almost no restrictions, Europeans are protected
by minimum standards. Finding a compromise on
this issue is virtually impossible, says Albrecht.
US companies like Facebook and Google see
European data privacy as a potential threat to their
billions in profits. Indeed, European authorities
have just threatened, once again, to penalize
Internet giant Google for its treatment of the
personal data of European customers.
Another option is to exclude contentious issues like
agriculture and data protection from the free trade
negotiations. But if that happened, there wouldn't
be much of a trade deal left and the whole project
would be redundant. Customs duties, for example,
are already so low today, at about 3 percent on
average, that they play a relatively minor role.
The free trade agreement is "by far our most
important project for the future," says Chancellor
Merkel. It appears that not everyone in Europe
agrees.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
c SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013