Proposed Global Accord Called a Disaster for Public Services [View all]

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/17-0


A school in Papua New Guinea. “Services” refers to an extremely broad array of sectors, including education, water and energy provision, health, banking, construction, retail and much more. (Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS)

WASHINGTON - Nearly 350 international civil society organisations are urging countries taking part in new negotiations towards an agreement on “trade in services” to abandon the effort, warning that the accord would negatively impact on universal access to and national regulation of public services.

Trade representatives of nearly 50 countries, led by the United States and the members of the European Union, have since last year been engaged in initial discussions on a framework for what is being called the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). This week, officials meeting in Geneva are marking the beginning of the substantive next phase of talks, with governments now offering their views on individual aspects of any eventual agreement.

On Monday, 341 national and international organisations, representing hundreds of millions of members, warned that the TISA framework threatens to undermine essential services around the globe. They also worry that the negotiations are pushing anti-regulatory stances that in part led to the recent international financial crisis.

“The TISA negotiations largely follow the corporate agenda of using ‘trade’ agreements to bind countries to an agenda of extreme liberalisation and deregulation in order to ensure greater corporate profits at the expense of workers, farmers, consumers and the environment,” an open letter from the groups, addressed to trade ministers both involved in the TISA negotiations and those not participating, states.