A few minutes ago, Deutschlandfunk (german public radio) aired a feature on the consequences of #TTIP 's impact on our standards such as the precautionary principle etc.
Wissenschaft im Brennpunkt: Risikobewertung in der Forschung, Wie TTIP mit Fakten hantiert.
If you understand German, take out the time to read this:
In Europe, researchers who come to new insights and uncomfortable, slightly under pressure. (picture alliance / dpa / Jens Büttner)
Handled risk assessment in the ForschungWie TTIP with facts
TTIP to be the largest trade agreement ever. The parties promise: stay European standards unchanged, limit values for toxins are found scientifically sound. But what does this mean in practice? Already there are in this area a trial of strength to the scientific opinion of sovereignty.
Angela Merkel: "And that is the first message that what has been agreed by the European Union standards, which is not lowered This is the prerequisite for the negotiating mandate.."
All high European safety regulations remain intact. That's what I keep hearing, when the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement is the speech. I also hear that decisions should be based on the solid foundation of science in the future.
"So authorization procedure must be as scientifically based ..."
Everything positive messages. Why should I so afraid of?
"So that reads harmless, but has a high high explosive power if you want to overturn the European rules, do you enable cookies on this approach naturally is best."
Already in the spring, the first heavy moist heat falls on the town and announces the heat of summer to. The young Umweltanwaltschaft Baskut O. Tuncak is today quite relaxed in shorts and T-shirt to the office. He works for the Center for International Environmental Law CIEL in Washington DC not far from the US Congress and observed precisely what forces act in the design and implementation of laws; as lobbyists, politicians, the media, as well as scientific institutions with advice and assessments to develop its influence. I came to Washington to find answers to the contradictions in the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement TTIP.
"TTIP to be the largest trade agreement ever. And reduce particularly the regulatory differences, or even eliminate them. The European Commission is currently negotiating mutual recognition of standards by a so-called positive list. This could lead, for example, means that in the future the US produced cosmetics may be imported, which were previously banned by the EU, because they contain toxic and hazardous substances I'll give you an example of how big the differences are now. The US has only eleven chemical substances for use in cosmetic products banned . The EU has 1,300 banned from the cosmetic sector. "
Arbitration: Canada had to reimburse lost profits companies
If it were possible to implement the new TTIP trading architecture, would probably consumers at a disadvantage, also the European Parliament would be restricted in its discretion, so his fears. Can he fix his worries of examples, I ask him.
Tuncak stated that he particularly critical sees three important mechanisms: science-based authorization procedure, which nullify the EU precautionary principle; the regulatory Council, the institutionalized lobbying on a permanent negotiating table; and a committee which meets in secret investor arbitration, States may sue for lost profits in the company. These three pillars form an effective deregulation chain. You are required by business associations on both sides of the Atlantic, and are part of the current TTIP negotiation. For over 20 years this find in North America already have their application. They were introduced by NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA also applies therefore as a blueprint for TTIP:
"Canada had, for example, passed a law prohibiting the addition of Nero toxin in gasoline. Although the United States already had the same law, there was poisonous admixture already prohibited, could sue the Canadian government before a ISDS arbitration a US company when Canada introduced the same law. "
Sounds only times absurd, I think, and: Do we know how this secret arbitral tribunal has gone out?
"Canada lost the case and the result was: the Nero toxin-law had to be reversed in Canada, Canada had the company will refund the lost profits and had to at the company even apologize."
"The planned TTIP Regulatory Council has a very strong slowing effect," warns Umweltanwaltschaft Baskut O. Tuncak the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington DC (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
One must imagine it like a big onion, Tuncak tried to put the complex subject matter in a comprehensible picture. "To new regulations or limits many administrative layers would put that slow down the process or even could prevent only when the onion is peeled, the law takes effect -. And when that happens, it drives the entrepreneurs likely tears to my eyes, he laughs But it will go even further with the shelling.:
The next preventing layer is an institution that is called when the Regulatory Council TTIP. At this new negotiating table sit trade experts and lawyers and watch new regulations and laws, which represent a new "barrier to trade", or they make a cost-benefit calculation.
"For example, the EU is currently developing nanotechnology a new registration procedure. As soon as the EU sought to introduce, the US Commerce Department, USTR, which recognize them as an obstacle to trade and stop this new institution of the regulatory Council this new nano-regulation could . "
Namely, before the European Parliament can discuss this proposal. This has serious impact on the legislation:
"So the planned TTIP Regulatory Council has a very strong slowing effect or" Chillingeffekt "- which is valid for health, environmental, chemical and labor law standards."
Here, the levering of laws could likely begin much already. Namely there, where it is determined whether a product is dangerous, so in the laboratories of researchers. Tuncak suggests to me, but to check the self as an example
"The pesticide atrazine is banned in the EU and still allowed in the US. Why is that?"
Chemical company Syngenta scientists put under pressure
After the interview, I go to a coffee shop and do research on the Internet about the pesticides atrazine: 33 million kilograms were 2013 used in industrialized agriculture in the US, half of the corn and 90 percent of sugarcane sprayed with it. Atrazine is degraded very slowly and accumulates in groundwater. For over ten years, it may no longer be applied in the EU, because it is feared that it endangered flora and fauna. Also a harmful effect on human beings can not be excluded. - How the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic came to such different assessments, I wonder.
I speak with Tyrone Hayes. The biologist doing research for 15 years at a public university in California:
"I examined the effects of hormones in Berkeley and chemical compounds on amphibians, as the manufacturer of atrazine approached me to explore the effect of atrazine on frogs."
Professor Tyrone Hayes explained that he had accepted third-party funds industry, but he had paid a high price:
"In these studies, I have found that the plant poison atrazine development in male frogs disturbs so strong that they will develop into female frogs The male frogs developed even suddenly spawning -.. So frog eggs"
A result with which no one expected - not even Syngenta, the manufacturer of atrazine:
"The company prevented me to publish this work. Then they asked me to manipulate my personal data separately and change it. And finally, they banned me completely, to talk about my research results to the public. I refused."
The chemical company Syngenta tried to refute by a kind of PR campaign against its results to dismantle him to ridicule. And not only that:
Tyrone Hayes tells of a hate figure, Tim Pastoor, Wisssenschafler Syngenta, which had provoked him at an event with vicious threats, part of a campaign of intimidation.
I inquired how they are because these serious allegations by Tyrone Hayes in writing to the Basel headquarters of Syngenta? The press office replied by e-mail:
"The research results of Hayes are not reproducible Our communication actions were always aimed to clarify the scientific facts and:.. The ban in the EU, no longer to register atrazine was purely" political "motivation."
In the US, the aftercare principle applies: you have to prove a hazard
The whole sounds more like a Hollywood thriller, as according to the daily life of a scientist who conducts research with frogs, I think. Was the young professor might become paranoid? Several months ago, internal memos have been published as part of a process that accurately document the actions of the company: These Syngenta documents that detective agencies have been instructed to monitor the scientist, and his phone was tapped and his emails were read to create a psychological profile of Tyrone Hayes. The released court documents show extensive internal company communications and memos. Here to me is the question of whether an individual scientist or a public university could defend against such attacks and methods at all.
"Every independent study found similar problems we have just more studies published in which 22 scientists from 12 countries participate:.. Atrazine causes problems in sexual organs in mammals, fish and birds"
But the EPA did this pesticide continues on the market. The scientific evidence was not clear enough for the testing personnel. Because in the US, the aftercare principle applies: you have to prove the danger, the so-called "Proof of Harm". The industry can easily gain the decision-making authority in this system. Research results can be hindered, manipulated, bought and subverted, as the example of Tyrone Hayes clearly proven. In addition, risks are not always clearly provable. Sometimes there are only suspicions, preliminary evidence that one would have to investigate with more studies and time. Reasons why the approval process in Europe is much more deliberative - finally applies the precautionary principle here. The EU was in a very similar case recently else before: in the case of neonicotinoids. Fears had become loud that this pesticide affects bees, for example, by interfering with their ability to learn and their sense of direction. The reason for a moratorium, which took effect on 1 December 2013 and force the researchers gave the opportunity to pursue the suspect. I travel back to Europe and I wonder whether this principle could actually be eroded by TTIP as critics warn?
On this gray morning, the chairman of the Environment Committee Baerbel Hoehn sitting in her large office at the lowest level of the Bundestag. They, too, came back recently from a trip to the US. I tell her about my research on atrazine, she just nods, as this would well known:
"I was with the environmental committee of the Bundestag in the US We have spoken with the Environmental Protection Agency, who said. 'That would be great if we had REACH.' If we are now faced with the low standards in the chemical field of USA, it will automatically lead to lower. "
Green MEP Baerbel Hoehn with TTIP opponents in Berlin: ".. So that one always say, these are myths, but not the reasons I can explain this very well" (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
I am still skeptical about whether there is evidence for it. Finally, the US agreement TTIP being negotiated behind closed doors and there is little information. Are the fears perhaps just myths TTIP critics? Baerbel Hoehn also has asked that. But now is the text for the Canadian agreement, CETA, in front, on which a lot can be read.
"So that one always say, these are myths, but not the reasons I can very well explain, because we have the texts of CETA -. By the Canadian Agreement -. Angekuckt The question is what is in the ? In the future, his future is as clear in it: "efficient science based" - in other words, which must be efficient, and the approval must be based scientifically I do this time with an example, we would choose here, for example, if new genetically.. get crops to market, we want to ban. And there's just the question, we can not with such a free trade agreement? "
The Associate Members of Hoehn print me in the corresponding pages. Indeed: On page 442 there is a large chapter applies to genetic engineering. It says that the approval of new genetically modified organisms may only be granted on the basis of scientific findings. The principle is known as the free trade jargon "Science based approvel to regulation".
If the contract text is not observed, it can be expensive for the taxpayer
Know the Berlin Bundestag the text and you will know what is hidden behind the innocuous-sounding phrase? How do the experts that monitor for decades in Germany and Europe for approval to the so-called "green genetic engineering"? I ask Wolfgang Köhler to an assessment. He knows the wrestling industry with the security authorities. Kohler is a proven expert, oversaw as head almost a decade for the federal government, the approval of genetic engineering in agriculture, but he was the GM initially quite unselfconsciously over, as he explained to me:
"Science-based" is a terminology that we know well from international trade agreements, which is also in the WTO. This means that you may only prohibit products from the market, or prevent market entry if they have scientifically based evidence that the product is harmful. This is the philosophy that stands behind it. "
After the lawyer by training, has the already present CETA agreement looked exactly he is surprised by the uniqueness.
"The fact that there is so such an audacity, I honestly would not expect."
And he added that this FTA is an absolute international legally binding contract that can be enforced at any time in the World Trade Organization. If the contract text is not observed, it can be really expensive for the taxpayer also. Many, he says, underestimated the dangers:
"There will be a development which is all we have for safeguards to try to overturn Exactly which will take place And everything our politicians tell us now:.." We needed everyone to be afraid; everything remains here in Europe as it is. "Then I would say, either do not at all know what they are talking about, or they tell us aware of nonsense!"
Bundestag member Jürgen Hardt of the CDU parliamentary group - he coordinates the TTIP negotiations for the chancellery - contradicts; he sees in the purely scientific approach that the United States and Canada call, no problem:
"I think so, it is the method that we hold a total for the right:" If something is forbidden or allowed, then it must be comprehensible factual scientific basis and justification enter, not emotions or gut feelings should guide us, but that, what we measure concretely, weigh, feel and be able to determine scientifically. And I think it's a step forward, if we rely only on such methods. "
Wolfgang Köhler points out how the risk assessment of researchers coming in product safety is generally about. In his view, it is even in Europe not balanced enough that you in the approval process only likely to support it themselves. Finally: Most reports that are used for risk assessment, shall be submitted by the industry.
Whom should we believe: the industry or the scientists?
"Science-Based" - based on scientific research, it all sounds very, very great, sounds at first sight as if all "dead sure" is and always has to be right 100 percent - there is not! Science is also politics. There is no independent science, there is no independent research. Therefore, it is highly dangerous and, in my view not acceptable to put a decision solely in the hands of scientists, researchers. This requires a societal discussion process and the decision by politicians who have been elected for and perhaps also deselected again. Scientists alone are not a sufficient source for this corrective we have the precautionary principle. "
The case of the US researcher Tyrone Hayes frog is not an isolated case. In Europe, researchers who come to new insights and uncomfortable, slightly under pressure. Who dares too far out, the be career and destroying the scientific reputation, I hear over and over again. Names and examples are given, such as the French scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini. What's on their research findings turn, can be determined for a layman hardly. Whom should we believe: the industry or the scientists?
Genlabor Monsanto: Germany is a key market for the US company. (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
In Halle I meet a bee researcher, the Monsanto maize Mon 810 checked on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture on the compatibility of bees.
"At the beginning of the millennium I mostly dealt with genetic engineering and there have been many studies that have actually demonstrated that no harm to honeybees. And with this expectation, I'm gone off."
Many scientists of the industry denied that there is a horizontal gene transfer in bees. However, Henrich Kaats could prove otherwise.
"Then we tried the publishing in Nature and the reviewers were really positive. We have not heard of Nature."
Meanwhile, a television crew on the bee researcher in Halle had become aware and wanted to talk about his new findings:
"I had the ZDF people said:. Before it is published, you do not bring that and then there is still in the news and then I said:" How can that be? - "Know ye not that the paper is rejected", the researcher was asked by the ZDF journalists:
"And that of course has surprised me: How can it be that the journalists know it in advance than before the author who has filed it in a journal - Yes Where did you get that because - We have the Monsanto who knew this? . "
Germany is a key market for Monsanto
While the risk assessment makes little progress, the development of new products is progressing with great leaps, and I experience in Saint Louis at Monsanto:
"Only 13 years ago it was possible to decode human genomes, then it cost $ 400 million and it has taken many years: This machine can make it in a few days and it would cost only 1,000 dollars.
I explained that this was the best gene sequencer in the world and specialized in seeds. This machine can write in just one day, the gene map of a plant.
"From the discovery to commercial use but it will take another eight to ten years and cost another $ 100 million. As for the commercial use, unfortunately, delayed the entire test."
No wonder that the industry shuffles the feet! Thanks to innovation, they can always faster and cheaper to develop new products to market. The legislator, who must assess the danger to protect their citizens, lagging more and more behind. Germany is for the products of Monsanto a key market: Germany is the largest importer of soya from the United States, which is genetically modified to 85 percent. 4.6 million tons of soybean meal to be fed every year in Germany.
I am going to Brussels to talk to Beat Späth. He is the Director of BIO-Europe. Near the European Parliament, I find his office, a nice office floor in a handsome old building. Späth calls on the approximation of the American procedure and a pure "science-based authorization".
"The risk assessment will be more and more politicized. This is the fault of the policy, so these are the Member States and the European Commission once again the blame that risk criteria are created that are simply scientifically unjustifiable."
How clearly one knows really how safe is, for example, genetic engineering? And can you prove it? The answer surprised by someone who calls a purely science-based authorization:
. "This is obviously very complicated in detail but it is running out for us to trust So I trust Greenpeace or the European Academies of Sciences, I trust EFSA or the European Commission and say that is all but Greenpeace - that was never proved that genetic engineering in any way a higher risk than conventional seed. There is a movement of scientists, which of course frantically try anyway what Unsafe be found at the technology. That is the "golden grail" of this "anti-technology movement "that they just myths have built up that it is not secure, and try also to prove it."
"The Regulatory Council is extremely dangerous"
Beat Späth is one of the many lobbyists in Brussels. In recent years the EU has made great efforts to push back its influence. The few advances could be made in one fell swoop destroyed by TTIP now, knows particularly the anti-lobbying organization Corporate Europe Observatory. Thanks to the elaborate search of political scientist Pia Eberhardt we know that in the transatlantic free trade agreement a new permanent lobbying institution is installed: the Regulatory Council. This council is composed of American and European trade experts and lawyers who may check any new EU law before it is adopted, on its "profitability". Thus, the industry will be given a wide-ranging say: In addition to the science-based regulation, Pia Eberhardt sees the greatest threat to restrict parliaments:
"The Regulatory Council is for me actually one of two hearts and he is extremely dangerous. On the explosiveness of regulatory co-operation we have come through a Freedom of Information request to the Commission that we have asked. To which the Commission has responded with a real stack of paper, it was total chaos in this stack of papers, we have position papers found by Business Europe and the US Chamber of Commerce, in which they say quite clearly:. "We want to use these negotiations to co-legislators be. "They actually use that word!"
That is, even if it could be scientifically proven by many years of research, that a substance is dangerous, may fail a prohibition if it does not meet the economic feasibility criteria of the regulatory Council. Is the EU Commission naive when our protections set so recklessly jeopardized, I want to know from Pia Eberhardt:
"I do not think that the EU negotiators are naive. They know exactly what they're doing! You have the interest to be a service provider for the European companies. That is just as well to give these companies more power here on legislative processes act and so to assert their interests. "
One has become clear to me: The rules of the game, how we deal with scientific results in the risk assessment in the future be, subject to change with the transatlantic FTA TTIP and CETA fundamentally. Politics and consumers will have a hard time with their objections to the De-regulation chain of "scientifically based regulation", "Investor-arbitration" and arrive "Regulatory Council". Especially when a risk can not be proved quickly and clearly. Amazingly, that the Berlin looks different:
Angela Merkel:
"And that is the first message that what has been agreed by the European Union to standards that will not be lowered."
Wissenschaft im Brennpunkt: Risikobewertung in der Forschung, Wie TTIP mit Fakten hantiert.
If you understand German, take out the time to read this:
In Europe, researchers who come to new insights and uncomfortable, slightly under pressure. (picture alliance / dpa / Jens Büttner)
Handled risk assessment in the ForschungWie TTIP with facts
TTIP to be the largest trade agreement ever. The parties promise: stay European standards unchanged, limit values for toxins are found scientifically sound. But what does this mean in practice? Already there are in this area a trial of strength to the scientific opinion of sovereignty.
Angela Merkel: "And that is the first message that what has been agreed by the European Union standards, which is not lowered This is the prerequisite for the negotiating mandate.."
All high European safety regulations remain intact. That's what I keep hearing, when the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement is the speech. I also hear that decisions should be based on the solid foundation of science in the future.
"So authorization procedure must be as scientifically based ..."
Everything positive messages. Why should I so afraid of?
"So that reads harmless, but has a high high explosive power if you want to overturn the European rules, do you enable cookies on this approach naturally is best."
Already in the spring, the first heavy moist heat falls on the town and announces the heat of summer to. The young Umweltanwaltschaft Baskut O. Tuncak is today quite relaxed in shorts and T-shirt to the office. He works for the Center for International Environmental Law CIEL in Washington DC not far from the US Congress and observed precisely what forces act in the design and implementation of laws; as lobbyists, politicians, the media, as well as scientific institutions with advice and assessments to develop its influence. I came to Washington to find answers to the contradictions in the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement TTIP.
"TTIP to be the largest trade agreement ever. And reduce particularly the regulatory differences, or even eliminate them. The European Commission is currently negotiating mutual recognition of standards by a so-called positive list. This could lead, for example, means that in the future the US produced cosmetics may be imported, which were previously banned by the EU, because they contain toxic and hazardous substances I'll give you an example of how big the differences are now. The US has only eleven chemical substances for use in cosmetic products banned . The EU has 1,300 banned from the cosmetic sector. "
Arbitration: Canada had to reimburse lost profits companies
If it were possible to implement the new TTIP trading architecture, would probably consumers at a disadvantage, also the European Parliament would be restricted in its discretion, so his fears. Can he fix his worries of examples, I ask him.
Tuncak stated that he particularly critical sees three important mechanisms: science-based authorization procedure, which nullify the EU precautionary principle; the regulatory Council, the institutionalized lobbying on a permanent negotiating table; and a committee which meets in secret investor arbitration, States may sue for lost profits in the company. These three pillars form an effective deregulation chain. You are required by business associations on both sides of the Atlantic, and are part of the current TTIP negotiation. For over 20 years this find in North America already have their application. They were introduced by NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA also applies therefore as a blueprint for TTIP:
"Canada had, for example, passed a law prohibiting the addition of Nero toxin in gasoline. Although the United States already had the same law, there was poisonous admixture already prohibited, could sue the Canadian government before a ISDS arbitration a US company when Canada introduced the same law. "
Sounds only times absurd, I think, and: Do we know how this secret arbitral tribunal has gone out?
"Canada lost the case and the result was: the Nero toxin-law had to be reversed in Canada, Canada had the company will refund the lost profits and had to at the company even apologize."
"The planned TTIP Regulatory Council has a very strong slowing effect," warns Umweltanwaltschaft Baskut O. Tuncak the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington DC (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
One must imagine it like a big onion, Tuncak tried to put the complex subject matter in a comprehensible picture. "To new regulations or limits many administrative layers would put that slow down the process or even could prevent only when the onion is peeled, the law takes effect -. And when that happens, it drives the entrepreneurs likely tears to my eyes, he laughs But it will go even further with the shelling.:
The next preventing layer is an institution that is called when the Regulatory Council TTIP. At this new negotiating table sit trade experts and lawyers and watch new regulations and laws, which represent a new "barrier to trade", or they make a cost-benefit calculation.
"For example, the EU is currently developing nanotechnology a new registration procedure. As soon as the EU sought to introduce, the US Commerce Department, USTR, which recognize them as an obstacle to trade and stop this new institution of the regulatory Council this new nano-regulation could . "
Namely, before the European Parliament can discuss this proposal. This has serious impact on the legislation:
"So the planned TTIP Regulatory Council has a very strong slowing effect or" Chillingeffekt "- which is valid for health, environmental, chemical and labor law standards."
Here, the levering of laws could likely begin much already. Namely there, where it is determined whether a product is dangerous, so in the laboratories of researchers. Tuncak suggests to me, but to check the self as an example
"The pesticide atrazine is banned in the EU and still allowed in the US. Why is that?"
Chemical company Syngenta scientists put under pressure
After the interview, I go to a coffee shop and do research on the Internet about the pesticides atrazine: 33 million kilograms were 2013 used in industrialized agriculture in the US, half of the corn and 90 percent of sugarcane sprayed with it. Atrazine is degraded very slowly and accumulates in groundwater. For over ten years, it may no longer be applied in the EU, because it is feared that it endangered flora and fauna. Also a harmful effect on human beings can not be excluded. - How the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic came to such different assessments, I wonder.
I speak with Tyrone Hayes. The biologist doing research for 15 years at a public university in California:
"I examined the effects of hormones in Berkeley and chemical compounds on amphibians, as the manufacturer of atrazine approached me to explore the effect of atrazine on frogs."
Professor Tyrone Hayes explained that he had accepted third-party funds industry, but he had paid a high price:
"In these studies, I have found that the plant poison atrazine development in male frogs disturbs so strong that they will develop into female frogs The male frogs developed even suddenly spawning -.. So frog eggs"
A result with which no one expected - not even Syngenta, the manufacturer of atrazine:
"The company prevented me to publish this work. Then they asked me to manipulate my personal data separately and change it. And finally, they banned me completely, to talk about my research results to the public. I refused."
The chemical company Syngenta tried to refute by a kind of PR campaign against its results to dismantle him to ridicule. And not only that:
Tyrone Hayes tells of a hate figure, Tim Pastoor, Wisssenschafler Syngenta, which had provoked him at an event with vicious threats, part of a campaign of intimidation.
I inquired how they are because these serious allegations by Tyrone Hayes in writing to the Basel headquarters of Syngenta? The press office replied by e-mail:
"The research results of Hayes are not reproducible Our communication actions were always aimed to clarify the scientific facts and:.. The ban in the EU, no longer to register atrazine was purely" political "motivation."
In the US, the aftercare principle applies: you have to prove a hazard
The whole sounds more like a Hollywood thriller, as according to the daily life of a scientist who conducts research with frogs, I think. Was the young professor might become paranoid? Several months ago, internal memos have been published as part of a process that accurately document the actions of the company: These Syngenta documents that detective agencies have been instructed to monitor the scientist, and his phone was tapped and his emails were read to create a psychological profile of Tyrone Hayes. The released court documents show extensive internal company communications and memos. Here to me is the question of whether an individual scientist or a public university could defend against such attacks and methods at all.
"Every independent study found similar problems we have just more studies published in which 22 scientists from 12 countries participate:.. Atrazine causes problems in sexual organs in mammals, fish and birds"
But the EPA did this pesticide continues on the market. The scientific evidence was not clear enough for the testing personnel. Because in the US, the aftercare principle applies: you have to prove the danger, the so-called "Proof of Harm". The industry can easily gain the decision-making authority in this system. Research results can be hindered, manipulated, bought and subverted, as the example of Tyrone Hayes clearly proven. In addition, risks are not always clearly provable. Sometimes there are only suspicions, preliminary evidence that one would have to investigate with more studies and time. Reasons why the approval process in Europe is much more deliberative - finally applies the precautionary principle here. The EU was in a very similar case recently else before: in the case of neonicotinoids. Fears had become loud that this pesticide affects bees, for example, by interfering with their ability to learn and their sense of direction. The reason for a moratorium, which took effect on 1 December 2013 and force the researchers gave the opportunity to pursue the suspect. I travel back to Europe and I wonder whether this principle could actually be eroded by TTIP as critics warn?
On this gray morning, the chairman of the Environment Committee Baerbel Hoehn sitting in her large office at the lowest level of the Bundestag. They, too, came back recently from a trip to the US. I tell her about my research on atrazine, she just nods, as this would well known:
"I was with the environmental committee of the Bundestag in the US We have spoken with the Environmental Protection Agency, who said. 'That would be great if we had REACH.' If we are now faced with the low standards in the chemical field of USA, it will automatically lead to lower. "
Green MEP Baerbel Hoehn with TTIP opponents in Berlin: ".. So that one always say, these are myths, but not the reasons I can explain this very well" (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
I am still skeptical about whether there is evidence for it. Finally, the US agreement TTIP being negotiated behind closed doors and there is little information. Are the fears perhaps just myths TTIP critics? Baerbel Hoehn also has asked that. But now is the text for the Canadian agreement, CETA, in front, on which a lot can be read.
"So that one always say, these are myths, but not the reasons I can very well explain, because we have the texts of CETA -. By the Canadian Agreement -. Angekuckt The question is what is in the ? In the future, his future is as clear in it: "efficient science based" - in other words, which must be efficient, and the approval must be based scientifically I do this time with an example, we would choose here, for example, if new genetically.. get crops to market, we want to ban. And there's just the question, we can not with such a free trade agreement? "
The Associate Members of Hoehn print me in the corresponding pages. Indeed: On page 442 there is a large chapter applies to genetic engineering. It says that the approval of new genetically modified organisms may only be granted on the basis of scientific findings. The principle is known as the free trade jargon "Science based approvel to regulation".
If the contract text is not observed, it can be expensive for the taxpayer
Know the Berlin Bundestag the text and you will know what is hidden behind the innocuous-sounding phrase? How do the experts that monitor for decades in Germany and Europe for approval to the so-called "green genetic engineering"? I ask Wolfgang Köhler to an assessment. He knows the wrestling industry with the security authorities. Kohler is a proven expert, oversaw as head almost a decade for the federal government, the approval of genetic engineering in agriculture, but he was the GM initially quite unselfconsciously over, as he explained to me:
"Science-based" is a terminology that we know well from international trade agreements, which is also in the WTO. This means that you may only prohibit products from the market, or prevent market entry if they have scientifically based evidence that the product is harmful. This is the philosophy that stands behind it. "
After the lawyer by training, has the already present CETA agreement looked exactly he is surprised by the uniqueness.
"The fact that there is so such an audacity, I honestly would not expect."
And he added that this FTA is an absolute international legally binding contract that can be enforced at any time in the World Trade Organization. If the contract text is not observed, it can be really expensive for the taxpayer also. Many, he says, underestimated the dangers:
"There will be a development which is all we have for safeguards to try to overturn Exactly which will take place And everything our politicians tell us now:.." We needed everyone to be afraid; everything remains here in Europe as it is. "Then I would say, either do not at all know what they are talking about, or they tell us aware of nonsense!"
Bundestag member Jürgen Hardt of the CDU parliamentary group - he coordinates the TTIP negotiations for the chancellery - contradicts; he sees in the purely scientific approach that the United States and Canada call, no problem:
"I think so, it is the method that we hold a total for the right:" If something is forbidden or allowed, then it must be comprehensible factual scientific basis and justification enter, not emotions or gut feelings should guide us, but that, what we measure concretely, weigh, feel and be able to determine scientifically. And I think it's a step forward, if we rely only on such methods. "
Wolfgang Köhler points out how the risk assessment of researchers coming in product safety is generally about. In his view, it is even in Europe not balanced enough that you in the approval process only likely to support it themselves. Finally: Most reports that are used for risk assessment, shall be submitted by the industry.
Whom should we believe: the industry or the scientists?
"Science-Based" - based on scientific research, it all sounds very, very great, sounds at first sight as if all "dead sure" is and always has to be right 100 percent - there is not! Science is also politics. There is no independent science, there is no independent research. Therefore, it is highly dangerous and, in my view not acceptable to put a decision solely in the hands of scientists, researchers. This requires a societal discussion process and the decision by politicians who have been elected for and perhaps also deselected again. Scientists alone are not a sufficient source for this corrective we have the precautionary principle. "
The case of the US researcher Tyrone Hayes frog is not an isolated case. In Europe, researchers who come to new insights and uncomfortable, slightly under pressure. Who dares too far out, the be career and destroying the scientific reputation, I hear over and over again. Names and examples are given, such as the French scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini. What's on their research findings turn, can be determined for a layman hardly. Whom should we believe: the industry or the scientists?
Genlabor Monsanto: Germany is a key market for the US company. (Germany Radio / Peter Kreysler)
In Halle I meet a bee researcher, the Monsanto maize Mon 810 checked on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture on the compatibility of bees.
"At the beginning of the millennium I mostly dealt with genetic engineering and there have been many studies that have actually demonstrated that no harm to honeybees. And with this expectation, I'm gone off."
Many scientists of the industry denied that there is a horizontal gene transfer in bees. However, Henrich Kaats could prove otherwise.
"Then we tried the publishing in Nature and the reviewers were really positive. We have not heard of Nature."
Meanwhile, a television crew on the bee researcher in Halle had become aware and wanted to talk about his new findings:
"I had the ZDF people said:. Before it is published, you do not bring that and then there is still in the news and then I said:" How can that be? - "Know ye not that the paper is rejected", the researcher was asked by the ZDF journalists:
"And that of course has surprised me: How can it be that the journalists know it in advance than before the author who has filed it in a journal - Yes Where did you get that because - We have the Monsanto who knew this? . "
Germany is a key market for Monsanto
While the risk assessment makes little progress, the development of new products is progressing with great leaps, and I experience in Saint Louis at Monsanto:
"Only 13 years ago it was possible to decode human genomes, then it cost $ 400 million and it has taken many years: This machine can make it in a few days and it would cost only 1,000 dollars.
I explained that this was the best gene sequencer in the world and specialized in seeds. This machine can write in just one day, the gene map of a plant.
"From the discovery to commercial use but it will take another eight to ten years and cost another $ 100 million. As for the commercial use, unfortunately, delayed the entire test."
No wonder that the industry shuffles the feet! Thanks to innovation, they can always faster and cheaper to develop new products to market. The legislator, who must assess the danger to protect their citizens, lagging more and more behind. Germany is for the products of Monsanto a key market: Germany is the largest importer of soya from the United States, which is genetically modified to 85 percent. 4.6 million tons of soybean meal to be fed every year in Germany.
I am going to Brussels to talk to Beat Späth. He is the Director of BIO-Europe. Near the European Parliament, I find his office, a nice office floor in a handsome old building. Späth calls on the approximation of the American procedure and a pure "science-based authorization".
"The risk assessment will be more and more politicized. This is the fault of the policy, so these are the Member States and the European Commission once again the blame that risk criteria are created that are simply scientifically unjustifiable."
How clearly one knows really how safe is, for example, genetic engineering? And can you prove it? The answer surprised by someone who calls a purely science-based authorization:
. "This is obviously very complicated in detail but it is running out for us to trust So I trust Greenpeace or the European Academies of Sciences, I trust EFSA or the European Commission and say that is all but Greenpeace - that was never proved that genetic engineering in any way a higher risk than conventional seed. There is a movement of scientists, which of course frantically try anyway what Unsafe be found at the technology. That is the "golden grail" of this "anti-technology movement "that they just myths have built up that it is not secure, and try also to prove it."
"The Regulatory Council is extremely dangerous"
Beat Späth is one of the many lobbyists in Brussels. In recent years the EU has made great efforts to push back its influence. The few advances could be made in one fell swoop destroyed by TTIP now, knows particularly the anti-lobbying organization Corporate Europe Observatory. Thanks to the elaborate search of political scientist Pia Eberhardt we know that in the transatlantic free trade agreement a new permanent lobbying institution is installed: the Regulatory Council. This council is composed of American and European trade experts and lawyers who may check any new EU law before it is adopted, on its "profitability". Thus, the industry will be given a wide-ranging say: In addition to the science-based regulation, Pia Eberhardt sees the greatest threat to restrict parliaments:
"The Regulatory Council is for me actually one of two hearts and he is extremely dangerous. On the explosiveness of regulatory co-operation we have come through a Freedom of Information request to the Commission that we have asked. To which the Commission has responded with a real stack of paper, it was total chaos in this stack of papers, we have position papers found by Business Europe and the US Chamber of Commerce, in which they say quite clearly:. "We want to use these negotiations to co-legislators be. "They actually use that word!"
That is, even if it could be scientifically proven by many years of research, that a substance is dangerous, may fail a prohibition if it does not meet the economic feasibility criteria of the regulatory Council. Is the EU Commission naive when our protections set so recklessly jeopardized, I want to know from Pia Eberhardt:
"I do not think that the EU negotiators are naive. They know exactly what they're doing! You have the interest to be a service provider for the European companies. That is just as well to give these companies more power here on legislative processes act and so to assert their interests. "
One has become clear to me: The rules of the game, how we deal with scientific results in the risk assessment in the future be, subject to change with the transatlantic FTA TTIP and CETA fundamentally. Politics and consumers will have a hard time with their objections to the De-regulation chain of "scientifically based regulation", "Investor-arbitration" and arrive "Regulatory Council". Especially when a risk can not be proved quickly and clearly. Amazingly, that the Berlin looks different:
Angela Merkel:
"And that is the first message that what has been agreed by the European Union to standards that will not be lowered."
