Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 September 2014
416. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the status of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations; if he has sought the exclusion of public services from the free trade agreement investor-state dispute settlements, ISDS, mechanism; and if he will call for the full exclusion of ISDSs from the agreement. [34412/14]
View answer418. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if the State's right to regulate is protected in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership free trade agreement; and if so, if he will illustrate the way. [34414/14]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 416 and 418 together.
The 6th round of the TTIP negotiations took place in Brussels from 14 – 18 July, and a summary of the state of play of the negotiations after that round is available at:
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2014/july/tradoc_152699.pdf.
The 7th round of the TTIP negotiations is scheduled to take place in the US from the 29 September to 3 October. This will be the last round before the current European Commission ends its term on 30 October, and the US midterm elections, scheduled for 4 November, take place. It is expected that the 8th round of the negotiations will be held in December, with dates yet to be confirmed.
Concerning Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), the scope of the EU Commission’s negotiating mandate for TTIP includes ISDS. The EU Commission earlier this year decided to conduct a formal public consultation on ISDS in TTIP, and negotiations on ISDS under TTIP have been suspended since then. The formal consultation closed in July, and the EU Commission is now examining the submissions received, with a view to making recommendations in due course. The EU Commission’s preliminary report can be found at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2014/july/tradoc_152693.pdf.
Trade agreements are intended to cover flows of both trade and investment. Investment protection provisions in EU agreements are important because they are aimed at helping to insure against unfair and discriminatory treatment faced by EU business abroad. So in addition to providing protection to investors, agreements also seek to address the modalities for addressing any disputes which might arise. These are principles that underpin the rule of law in the EU and are the benchmarks that we would like to see well established in countries where our businesses trade and invest. It is for this reason that bilateral investment protection agreements are very common, not only in the EU where over 1,400 are in place, but also around the world where over 2,800 are in place among both developed and developing countries alike.
I believe that, where investor state dispute settlement provisions are part of any final agreements, it is possible to have the appropriate safeguards for public policy making, and possible to strike the right balance between providing redress for business where there is unfair treatment, and rules and procedures that prevent abuse and claims that are frivolous or without merit.
A document published by the EU Commission on its website explains the safeguards in place in the ISDS provisions in the EU-Canada Agreement. This document can be found at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/november/tradoc_151918.pdf.
For background information, the EU Commission has produced a very useful factsheet entitled “Investment Protection and Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement in EU agreements”, in which it explains why investment protection provisions are important, and sets out the approach to improve on international experience. The factsheet can be found on the EU Commission’s website at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/november/tradoc_151916.pdf.
As regards the right to regulate, the EU Commission’s statement on protecting public services in TTIP and other EU trade can be found at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1115 and underpins the continued right of member states to regulate in the public interest.
