EU won't sacrifice food safety for US trade deal

[Cybran]

http://www.thelocal.de/20160507/eu-w...e-deal-germany

The comments by Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt were the latest criticism of the thorny negotiations toward sealing a wide-ranging pact that would create a free-trade zone covering 850 million people.

Washington and Brussels want the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) completed this year before US President Barack Obama leaves office, but it has faced mounting opposition on both sides of the Atlantic.

Schmidt told the German news weekly Der Spiegel that it was time for the United States to "at last make a move" if it wants the agreement.

"So far at least they have hardly made any serious concessions," the minister was quoted as saying in an early excerpt of the interview in Saturday's edition of Der Spiegel magazine.

US policymakers are wrong if it thought "they can lure us Germans with concessions in the automotive sector", he said.

"We won't sacrifice our high food safety standards in a barter trade for approval of European car blinkers," he said, in reference to industry standards on car parts.

"One has nothing to do with the other," he said. "There won't be any such horse-trading."

Environmental group Greenpeace on Monday released a trove of leaked documents about the closed-door negotiations, claiming that a deal would inflict a dangerous lack of standards on US and European consumers.

To some observers, the draft text suggested that the US side is trying to use the carrot of easing restrictions on auto imports from Europe for concessions on its agricultural exports, perhaps including genetically modified foods.

TTIP is a travesty. The USA wants to force us to pay for watching TV content and feed us GMO garbage like they do across the Atlantic. TTIP must be scrapped.

[Deleted]

TTIP is Bullshit, everyone with at least two braincells can see that.

Still, I will believe our politicians aren't going to sell us out when Trump is president and wipes his ass with the TTIP papers.

[Flatspriest]

What a biased news article. From what I've read, it is the democrats that want to get it passed before Obama leaves office, and the republicans are mainly against it in the first place.

[JohnBrown1917]

With the power the big corps have in America, them pushing it is no surprise.


But thankfully, greenpeace Netherlands leaked parts of the deal, it got plenty of backlash.

[Deleted]

GM food is not unhealthy. There is no scientific evidence at all to support this paranoia.

There are valid reasons to be against this, but this isn't one of them.

[Machismo]

I'm still trying to figure out why people think GMO food is inherently dangerous, or even worse for you.

[Deleted]

GM food is not unhealthy. There is no scientific evidence at all to support this paranoia.

There are valid reasons to be against this, but this isn't one of them.

The antibiotics, pesticides and god knows what not you use to get another penny on the dollar definitely are.

I'm still trying to figure out why people think GMO food is inherently dangerous, or even worse for you.

It's from american companies, they will kill you if it makes them more money. You can't trust them with that technology.

[sarahtasher]

Why the OP lumps television with GM food ?

[Spectral]

Referring to GMO bans as "food safety standards" is pretty

[Flatspriest]

The antibiotics, pesticides and god knows what not you use to get another penny on the dollar definitely are.

GMO food is pesticide free...it is engineered that way.

[Spectral]

With the power the big corps have in America, them pushing it is no surprise.


But thankfully, greenpeace Netherlands leaked parts of the deal, it got plenty of backlash.

Thankfully for who? The German manufacturers that presumably won't profit as much? The consumers that have to pay more for food because of artificially restricted supplies?

[Machismo]

The antibiotics, pesticides and god knows what not you use to get another penny on the dollar definitely are.


It's from american companies, they will kill you if it makes them more money. You can't trust them with that technology.

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up the claim that GMO foods are unsafe, or worse than organic foods? I'd love to see it. If you like, I can provide a great deal of research that refutes such claims.

[Cybran]

The consumers that have to pay more for food because of artificially restricted supplies?

Quality has a price. We don't want to eat your poison, period.

[Sky High]

the trade deal is shit, sure, but all the outrage over gmo's is pretty fucking lulzy.

[Noradin]

I'm still trying to figure out why people think GMO food is inherently dangerous, or even worse for you.

It isn't inherently, but the practise of just allowing the altered organisms to spread without prior check if they turned out harmless is dangerous.
And the kind of changes some corporations like are unhealthy in the long run--such as modifying plants to be resistant to certain poisons then using said poisons to kill everything else. The problem here is a) that we aren't immune to said poisons, b) that they affect the enviroment where we do not want them to, and c) that the modifications may spread to plants we wanted to kill with the poison, thus creating the need for a different, stronger one.

[Machismo]

Quality has a price. We don't want to eat your poison, period.

Do you have any proof that it's poison?

[Crissi]

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up the claim that GMO foods are unsafe, or worse than organic foods? I'd love to see it. If you like, I can provide a great deal of research that refutes such claims.

Well, there is the argument that antibiotics being given to our food actually end up causing antibiotic resistent bacteria that Humans get and are thus screwed.

[JohnBrown1917]

Thankfully for who? The German manufacturers that presumably won't profit as much? The consumers that have to pay more for food because of artificially restricted supplies?

The europeans who will get fucked over by this deal?

[Deleted]

GMO food is pesticide free...it is engineered that way.

And how do they accomplish that? Wasn't the first thing they did make the plants produce the pesticides themselves?

Truth is you have no idea what you are doing, playing god and messing around with genetics. 'Murica has a habit of beeing Prometheus.

[Noradin]

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up the claim that GMO foods are unsafe, or worse than organic foods? I'd love to see it. If you like, I can provide a great deal of research that refutes such claims.

We do not need such in the EU, we need proof that they are save, not the other way around.
Just spreading them around hoping they will always turn out save and only reacting when shit hits the fan is plain stupid.