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•Formation pathways of incipient titanium clusters from TTIP are elucidated.•A new Ti/C/H/O reactive force field is developed.•Temperature has a non-linear effect on the formation of ...incipient titanium clusters.•O2 in the ambient promotes the inception and quantity of TiO2 significantly.
We performed ReaxFF reactive molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the inception mechanism of TTIP precursor droplet conversion to Ti-containing clusters in 1000 K–2500 K with or without gaseous O2 molecules. A new Ti/C/H/O ReaxFF force field has been developed. Key intermediate titanium species and the initial decomposition pathways of TTIP are identified. The effects of temperature, O2 concentration and high-temperature residence time on the conversion of TTIP to incipient titanium clusters are investigated. Results suggest that high pyrolysis temperature does not necessarily promote the formation of incipient Ti-containing clusters, due to less stable TiO bonds at high temperatures. Ti2OxCyHz species appear earlier than TiO2 during TTIP pyrolysis, while TiO2 forms earlier than Ti2OxCyHz species and has much higher concentration with ambient O2. Decreasing high-temperature residence time boosts the formation of Ti-containing clusters by facilitating the condensation of TiO2 vapors. The growth pattern of the incipient titanium clusters is elucidated as formation of TiO bond with TiOxCyHz species or titanium clusters followed by continuous breakage of TiO or CO bonds to release hydrocarbon moieties.
This article undertakes an actor-centred case study of the European Parliament's (EP) reaction to the politicisation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the most ...controversial EU trade negotiations in history, as structured by the behaviour of its political groups. Specifically, the article traces why and how the EP updated its position on TTIP at the height of politicisation through a new resolution adopted in the summer of 2015. We focus on the role played by the then swing group in the EP, the Socialist and Democrats (S&D), which was a key target of TTIP contestants. Building on the literature on EP politics, we explain how the S&D balanced responsiveness to outside contestants with the responsibility as a group that was required to maintain a stable majority within the EP. We demonstrate how the S&D position was steered by its largest delegations and MEPs with responsible roles. In addition, we show that S&D delegations which faced high levels of domestic politicisation and whose parties hold trade sceptic views defected from the compromise resolution. Our article contributes to the literatures on politicisation of trade, the role of the EP in trade policy, and politics in the European Parliament.
The heated scholarly and public debate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has centred predominantly on two questions. Firstly, is there something particularly special about ...TTIP, other than the fact that it involves the world's largest trading partners? And, secondly, is the concern about TTIP's deleterious effects justified? The starting point for our argument is that understanding an agreement like TTIP requires an emphasis on the socially constructed nature of reality. TTIP is ultimately novel in terms of the regulatory scope of its provisions, and it is problematic because it subtly promotes the (socially constructed) interests of those who merely see regulation as inefficient 'red tape'.
After the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) triggered massive public mobilization in the European Union (EU), literature emerged on the novel 'politicization' ...of trade in Europe. To be sure, public salience was high around the TTIP negotiations. However, public salience over EU trade and investment negotiations has varied considerably over the past two decades. The objective of this paper is to stimulate a research agenda explaining such variation. After presenting evidence of variation (over time, across contemporaneous negotiations, and across Member States), we review a diverse set of literature to lay out six complementary explanations for why some trade deals provoke public salience, while others do not: changing nature of trade and investment negotiations; growing discontent with globalization; transformation of the media landscape; institutional changes brought about by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty; the role of the United States; and foreign interference.
The negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) saw the development of a transnational campaign that gained momentum as the negotiations reached a critical status, ...including in Spain. The Spanish anti-TTIP campaign is interesting in that it has gained some salience among media, civil society, trade unions and some political parties in a country where trade and EU affairs are rarely controversial. In order to explain the transformation of the attitudes of Spanish civil society vis-à-vis the EU in the case of TTIP, we formulated descriptive and explanatory research questions, respectively: how is the mobilisation against TTIP different from the traditional involvement of Spanish civil society actors in EU issues? Why have actors which did not work together in previous campaigns cooperated in the case of TTIP? We analyse the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign, and we argue that the change of positions of Spanish civil society actors in relation to the EU in the case of TTIP can be explained on the basis of a change in the field, a notion that is suggestive because of the degree of continuity in the identity of the entrepreneurs of the anti-TTIP campaign in relation to past EU-critical mobilisations. Rather than an increased political cost of EU decision-making at national level, we argue that the introduction of EU-critical ideas can lead to an ‘empowering dissensus’ where the ability to mobilise citizens on EU issues acquires a renewed importance. We tackle our puzzle through a combination of methods, using semi-structured interviews and network analysis.
Non-tariff measures, particularly sanitary and phytosanitary measures and tariff-rate quotas, are two critical policy barriers that impede agricultural trade. Unlike simple tariffs, both measures ...contain non-linear effects and binding conditions that make their treatment in modeling trade liberalization challenging. In addition, the coexistence of these measures carries important interactive effects that restrict trade. This study investigates these joint effects by developing a conceptual framework that considers different partial liberalization scenarios. Our framework points to three cases that may arise: (a) binding tariff-rate quota, nonprohibitive sanitary and phytosanitary measure; (b) non-binding tariff-rate quota, non-prohibitive sanitary and phytosanitary measure; and (c) non-binding tariff-rate quota, prohibitive sanitary and phytosanitary measure. We then use a Computable General Equilibrium model to examine partial trade liberalization scenarios for these cases, using the ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations as our motivation. Our simulations provide a more nuanced analysis of complex trade liberalization and demonstrate the importance of modeling the interplay between these different types of barriers.
Financial regulation is an issue where differences between the EU and US are highly sensitive. Indeed, EU and US apply in a different manner the financial standards adopted at international level by ...the Basel Committee and have different systems of financial supervision. Due to these significant differences between the two systems, it is very difficult for the EU and US to reach an agreement on common financial standards within the TTIP negotiations. Actually, as the differences in regulation between the two systems are an obstacle to the access of the financial operators of each Party to the market of the other Party, the absence of common standards in this sector could nullify the efficacy of norms of market access that will be probably contained within the TTIP. Moreover, in a risk regulation perspective, considering the weight that the US and EU financial relationship have on the global system and taking account of the effect of destabilization that could be generated by the divergent requirements imposed to the credit institutions on the two sides of the Atlantic, the lack of common financial standards between the EU and US could have a great impact on global financial stability.
TTIP Regulatory Cooperation Herwig, Alexia
European journal of risk regulation,
06/2016, Letnik:
7, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The leaked TTIP documents reveal that the EU and US are discussing the introduction of a detailed set of procedural requirements for the adoption of regulatory measures. Default provisions are set ...forth in the chapter on regulatory cooperation, applicable to goods and services. More specific provisions are being negotiated in the chapters on technical barriers to trade and on sanitary and phytosanitary measures. If they conflict with the regulatory cooperation chapter, they prevail. This article analyses the regulatory cooperation chapter insofar as it pertains to trade in goods but to the exclusion of SPS matters and anything provided in the TBT chapter itself. The questions this article examines are to what extent the TTIP proposals expand upon the obligations the two parties have already taken on under WTO law and to what extent the resulting regulatory coordination is consistent withWTO law. It will be shown that the US proposals on procedure may constrain substantive regulatory discretion beyond what applies under the GATT and TBT Agreement of the WTO. It will alsobe shown that the needs to conduct trade impact assessments and a detailed explanation of the necessity of measures anticipate a legal challenge to necessity and will provide information of much use to complainants in meeting their burden of proof.
The May 2016 leak of draft texts produced within the context of the on–going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations has provided an interesting insight into the positions of the ...EU and US with regard to different dimensions of regulatory cooperation, with some chapters being complete or near completion (as other articles in this mini–symposium discuss), and others still in a more rudimentary format. One such field of regulation, covered in the leaked ‘Tactical State of Play’ document, covers geographical indicators (hereafter GIs). However, this coverage is very brief, stating that ‘discussions focused on the preparation of an intersessional discussion prior to the next round’. GIs, marks identifying the geographical origin, and by extension (so the argument goes) quality of goods, have continued to be a source of consternation in international trade regulation, with states unable to see eye–to–eye on how they should be protected, if at all.
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