Leaked documents reveal plan for attack
on public services in GATS negotiations

Scott Harris, AFL Staff

Trade activists worldwide are reacting to a leak of thousands of pages of secret trade negotiation documents outlining demands from the European Union to other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The documents, which were leaked to the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute and released worldwide on February 25, reveal European demands under the WTO’s services agreement, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

"These documents confirm our worst fears about GATS and demonstrate the extent to which Europe’s negotiating priorities reflect the interest of European business alone," said Peter Hardstaff of the UK-based World Development Movement.

"We now know that the EU has chosen to target working state and not-for profit service provision, for submission to the ultra free-market rules of this agreement."

The GATS was established within the WTO in 1994. Since 2000, negotiators from WTO countries have been engaged in closed-door negotiations in Geneva to radically expand the scope of the agreement.

The WTO has stated that the aim of negotiations is to expand the definition of services so broadly that GATS will become "directly relevant to many areas of regulation which traditionally have not been touched upon by multilateral trade deals."

The documents show that the European Union is making demands of 109 countries, including Canada, as well as 94 developing countries. 29 of the least developed countries in the world have had requests made of them to open up services to European corporations.

Demands for liberalization have been made across a range of sectors, including municipal water delivery, access to energy, transportation, financial services, culture, and telecommunications markets.

"They are demanding the systematic elimination across-the-board of rules and laws, covering every service sector, that regulate foreign investment and the activities of multinational corporations in poor countries," says Hardstaff.

The demands for liberalizing services in Canada run over 30 pages and include postal and courier services, construction, environmental services, financial services, transportation and energy services, including distribution, wholesaling and retail sale.

All WTO member nations, including Canada, have until March 31 to make initial offers detailing what specific commitments they are prepared to make. Negotiations on GATS will then continue until the planned conclusion of the current round of negotiations in January 2005.

Opponents say that the pace of negotiations must be slowed and that demands and offers should be public to allow for legitimate debate on the GATS. They add that further expansion of the WTO is reckless since there has been no analysis of the impacts of current agreements.

"They claimed GATS doesn’t endanger essential services, yet here they are explicitly targeted. The documents show the EU wants developing governments public interest regulations systemically eliminated," Hardstaff says.

"Negotiations must stop now."

The leaked documents are available online at www.polarisinstitute.org.