Activities of Miguel VIEGAS related to 2014/2228(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (A8-0175/2015 - Bernd Lange) PT
Amendments (39)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph a
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph a
a. take immediate action to ensure that a comprehensive and ambitious agreement is reached on the TTIP enhancing fair competition on both sides of the Atlanticsuspends all actions with regards to the TTIP agreement in view of guaranteeing the adequate democratic scrutiny of the citizens of the options, at both European and national level;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph b
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph b
b. take immediate action to ensure that free and fair competition on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as market access,any dispositions in the Treaty are subordinated to the right of the EU and its Member-States to define the levels of protection and that any such policy is not secured at the cost of social cohesion or the delivery of critical infrastructure or public services and is addressed on the basis of maintaining the highest standards possible within theand is done so with regard to existing levels of protection, especially within areas such as health and safety, education, consumer, labour and environmental legislation;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas it is important for Europethe need to get out of the commercial and agriculture to secure a mutually beneficial trade deal with the US in order to advance Europe’s position as a key player on the global marketal export policy is important for European agriculture;
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph c
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph c
c. take immediate action to include restrictions on state aid in the agreement; propose greater transparency within state aid rules and within the allocation of state aidallow individual member states use more state aid to vulnerable sectors of industry and allow for more proactive public sector enterprises. ;
Amendment 38 #
Draft opinion
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas respect for food safety and human and animal health standards will be a fundamental tenet of the negotitrade relations for European agriculture;
Amendment 43 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph d
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph d
d. take immediate action to ensure that market accessongoing negotiations on financial services are combined with upward convergence in financial regulation; support high international standards in on-going cooperation efforts in other international foraand any eventual Agreement are used as an opportunity to improve and enforce higher standards through regulatory convergence;
Amendment 48 #
Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
Ca. whereas practices such as the treatment of poultry meat with chlorinated products, the treatment of pork meat with organic acid and the use of Somatotropin in bovine are commonly used in the meat and dairy sectors in the US;
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph e
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph e
e. take immediate action to ensure that aggressive tax planning, and distortion of competition by e.g. moving of headquarters across the Atlantic to obtain competition-distorting conditions, are addressedprevent fiscal competition, namely through the dumping in the taxation of profits and financial gains and maintenance of offshores and other fiscally privileged zones;
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Recital C b (new)
Recital C b (new)
Cb. whereas the use of antibiotics in the EU is more restrictive than in the US and the US has not banned other pharmaceutical products as growth promoters in animals including the use of ractopanima, banned in 160 countries;
Amendment 57 #
Draft opinion
Recital C c (new)
Recital C c (new)
Cc. whereas there is a majority both in the European Parliament and amongst EU citizens which demands a prohibition of products from cloned animals and their descendants;
Amendment 61 #
Draft opinion
Recital C d (new)
Recital C d (new)
Cd. whereas the EU animal welfare standards have no equivalence in the US;
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Recital C e (new)
Recital C e (new)
Ce. having regard to the use and approval of new GMOs in the US and its use for animal and human consumption;
Amendment 65 #
Draft opinion
Recital C f (new)
Recital C f (new)
Cf. whereas there are many sensitivities and problems with products in the US’s market defaulting protected geographical indications including port wine;
Amendment 66 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph f
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph f
f. take immediate action to ensure that systematic movement of capital across the Atlantic, in order to avoid tax payments in the country of production and/or sale of goods or services, is addressedprohibited or subject to heavy taxation within the realm of TTIP;
Amendment 67 #
Draft opinion
Recital C g (new)
Recital C g (new)
Cg. considering that each year in the United States of America, an estimated 9 million people get sick, 55,000 are hospitalized, and 1,000 die of foodborne disease caused by known pathogens, such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157 (E. coli O157), Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), and Campylobacter as outlines in the report ‘Foodborne Illness Source Attribution Estimates for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157 (E. coli O157), Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), and Campylobacter using Outbreak Surveillance Data’ by the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC);
Amendment 68 #
Draft opinion
Recital C h (new)
Recital C h (new)
Ch. whereas existing agreements between the US and the EU, particularly those relating to the recognition by the United States of winemaking practices, recognition of geographical indications for this sector, agreements related to sanitary measures for the protection of public and animal health have not solved today divergent conception of risk analysis;
Amendment 69 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph g
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph g
Amendment 70 #
Draft opinion
Recital C i (new)
Recital C i (new)
Ci. whereas the import of products which fail to meet EU standards on animal welfare, food safety, human and animal health, put farmers, consumers and animals in the EU at a disadvantage;
Amendment 71 #
Draft opinion
Recital C j (new)
Recital C j (new)
Cj. whereas the survival of small and medium-sized farms cannot be abandoned to the volatility of prices in the international markets;
Amendment 72 #
Draft opinion
Recital C k (new)
Recital C k (new)
Ck. whereas the approval of TTIP would lead us to a situation of weakening of the European legislation to permit the use of carcinogens and other substances of very high concern as pesticides, posing a health hazard to workers, consumers and communities, as well as weaken, slow or stop efforts to regulate endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals;
Amendment 73 #
Draft opinion
Recital C l (new)
Recital C l (new)
Cl. whereas the approval of TTIP would obstruct efforts to save bee populations, risking irrevocable damage to the quality and quantity of our food supply;
Amendment 74 #
Draft opinion
Recital C m (new)
Recital C m (new)
Cm. whereas the approval of TTIP would install a ‘regulatory ceiling’ hampering global pesticide regulation.
Amendment 80 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph h
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph h
Amendment 81 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point a
Paragraph 1 – point a
a. prioritise an ambitious and balanced result of the negotiations for agriculture, the three main components of which (market access, geographical indications and sanitary and phytosanitary measures) should be tackled early and in parallel reorientation of trade and agricultural policy by removing the negotiation process, in order to give Parliament enough time to discuss and evaluate this chapter with stakeholders and European citizeagriculture and food out of the negotiations;
Amendment 98 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph i
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph i
i. propose the introduction of a national court systems-first principle, to be supplemented with mediation and intergovernmental dispute mechanisms in legal disputes in order to ensure easier access and lower litigation costs than those offered by current ISDS- mechanisms, benefitting especially SMEs (having fewer resources available than large corporations), thus insists on the protection of democratic powers of legislators and takes immediate action to ensure the removal of any investor - state dispute settlement body (ISDS) as any interference from non- democreating more equal competition conditions; stress that any and all dispute mechanisms set in place within the TTIP-framework must uphold full transparency and be subject to democratic principlesc or non -EU bodies, contravenes democratic principles of sovereignty, transparency and scrutiny;
Amendment 105 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point b
Paragraph 1 – point b
b. firmly commit to the strict preservation of standards on food safety and, human and animal health and animal welfare, as defined under EU legislation, and ensure that fundamental values of the EU such as the precautionary principle are not undermin, the recognition of animals as sentient beings as enshrined in Article 13 TFEU, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union are not undermined and will be respected;
Amendment 119 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point b a (new)
Paragraph 1 – point b a (new)
ba. prevent products that have not been produced in line with EU food safety, human and animal health, and animal welfare standards from entering the EU-market;
Amendment 123 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph j
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph j
j. acknowledge the importance of state- owned enterprises for certain crucial services; and calls for immediate action in order to ensure that specific and identifiable provisions for the protection of State Owned Enterprises are prioritised;
Amendment 125 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point b b (new)
Paragraph 1 – point b b (new)
bb. prevent any interference of non- democratic or non-EU bodies in or prior to the democratic decision making process in the EU regarding any future SPS- measures that might be considered;
Amendment 137 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph k
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph k
k. stress the need to uphold the EU’s tradition for organisfor each Member State to organise its own public services, to prioritise funding itsfor public services, and calls for an exclusion of public services from the agreementimmediate action to make provisions to allow flexibility to bring public services back into public control;
Amendment 137 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point c
Paragraph 1 – point c
c. ensure a positive final outcome of the negotiations for agriculture reflecting both the offensive and defensive interests of the EU agricultural sector concerning the abolition or reduction of both tariff and non-tariff barriers, including in particular sanitary and phytosanitary standards andthat trade relations between the EU and the US do not put access to land for feeding local populations at risk; prevent products coming to market with proicedures, so that EU producers make genuine gains s below costs of production, including terms of access to the US markethe correct remuneration of the producers;
Amendment 145 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph l
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph l
l. propose that there should be no obligation in TTIP to expose sensitive sectors to competitiontake immediate action in order to table additional vulnerability provisions which will allow for the exclusion of susceptible sectors from any final trade agreement; any agreed provisions should be made in tandem with consultation with relevant stakeholders and interested committees.
Amendment 155 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph l a (new)
Paragraph 1 – subparagraph l a (new)
la. ensure that the application of the Lisbon Treaty Article 218.10 (TFEU) which provides that the European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure;
Amendment 156 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point d
Paragraph 1 – point d
d. secensure a level playing field, treating as sensitive those products for which direct competition would expose EU agricultural producers to excessive pressure, for example in cases where regulatory conditions and related costs of production in the EU diverge from those in the USthat the precautionary principle is not called into question, as this means the defence of quality standards and food safety demanded by European consumers, and serves as an added value that ensure the maintenance of public health;
Amendment 187 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point e
Paragraph 1 – point e
e. secure significantly improvedthe protection of EU geographical indications and better consumer information as an essential element of a balanced agreement, taking the relevant chapter of the CETA with Canada as a good example;
Amendment 203 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point e a (new)
Paragraph 1 – point e a (new)
ea. not question the aspects relating to the establishment of standards of European public procurement law, as applied in practice, especially at regional and local level, when you take into account, for example, compliance labour and social legislation and collective agreements, GPP, local hiring and prioritize local development, or attention to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which ensures that, when awarding the contract to the highest bidder, you can weigh in addition to price, other criteria such as social aspects related to sustainability;
Amendment 211 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point f
Paragraph 1 – point f
f. engage in a fully transparent, timely and comprehensive manner with all agricultural stakeholders on all aspects of the negotiations.sure the application of the Lisbon Treaty Article 218.10 (TFEU) which says that the European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure;
Amendment 219 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point f a (new)
Paragraph 1 – point f a (new)
fa. ensure that products such as GMOs or coming from cloned animals and their descendants, and with substances banned in the EU do no enter the EU market or end up in the EU food chain;
Amendment 226 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 – point f b (new)
Paragraph 1 – point f b (new)
fb. remove regulatory cooperation and any investor-state dispute settlement body (ISDS) as these defy EU standards on animal welfare, food safety, public and animal health, transparency, accountability and traceability.