ENN PUKRAST EVRÓPUSAMBANDIÐ - HVAÐ UM ÍSLAND?
Í apríl árið 2002 varð uppi fótur og fit þegar breska stórblaðið Guardian upplýsti hvaða kröfum Stjórnarnefnd Evrópusambandsins hefði ákveðið að tefla fram gagnvart viðsemjendum sambandsins í hinum svokölluðu GATS samningum. Þessir samningar fara fram á vettvangi Alþjóðaviðskiptastofnunarinnar en hún var sett á laggirnar árið 1994 á grunni GATT-samningaferilsins um afnám tolla á heimsvísu. Vinnuheitið GATS er skammstöfun á General Agreement on Trade in Services, Almennt samkomulag um verslun á sviði þjónustu. Tekist er á um hvernig skilgreina skuli þjónustustarfsemi og hvaða hlutar hennar skuli ofurseldir markaðslögmálunum. Samtök launafólks hafa barist fyrir því að þessar viðræður fari fram fyrir opnum tjöldum en ekki luktum. Það hefur hins vegar reynst erfitt að fá þessu framgengt því þeir sem stýra viðræðunum vita að það sem makkað er um á fundum Alþjóðaviðskiptastofnunarinnar, WTO fellur ekki allt í kramið hjá almenningi. Þess vegna er notuð gamla aðferðin, að láta menn standa frammi fyrir gerðum hlut. Stjórnarnefnd Evrópusambandsins semur fyrir hönd allra aðildarríkja sambandsins án þess að um samningsforsendur fari fram opin umræða!
Uppljóstranir Guardian á sínum tíma leiddu meðal annars í ljós að Evrópusambandið hafði reist vægast sagt umdeilanlegar kröfur, m.a. um einkavæðingu drykkjarvatnsins; kröfur sem í ljós kom að almenningur var mjög andsnúinn.
Gats stefnir að allsherjarmarkaðsvæðingu
GATS samningsferlið er flókið. Það byggir á grundvallarsamningi sem stefnir að markaðsvæðingu á öllum sviðum efnahagsstarfseminnar. Einstök ríki geta hins vegar gengið mislangt í að skuldbinda sig til að markaðsvæða tiltekna geira efnahagsstarfseminnar. En þegar skuldbinding hefur á annað borð verið gefin um að halda með tiltekna starfsemi út á markaðstorgið er erfitt að hverfa þaðan aftur því ríkin eiga þá yfir höfði sér málsókn og hugsanlegar skaðabætur.
Tímasetningar Alþjóðaviðskiptastofnunarinnar hafa ekki allar gengið eftir og má það að hluta til rekja til almennrar andspyrnu. Ríkisstjórnir sem eru fylgjandi, jafnvel ákafar að markaðsvæða, þar með talið velferðarþjónustuna, fara varlega í sakirnar vegna andstöðu heima fyrir. Mótmælin í Seattle í Bandaríkjunum árið 1999 sýndu hver þungi var í andstöðu almennings en frá þessum tíma hefur mótmælum ekki linnt. Frægt var þegar WTO ákvað að halda fund sinn í Doha í Quatar á eyðimörk Arabíuskagans. Vitað var að þangað kæmust engir mótmælendur og aðeins örfáum fulltrúum verkalýðshreyfingar og almannasamtaka var heimilað að vera viðstaddir fundinn.
Ný taktík
Í kjölfarið var ákveðin ný áætlun. Sérhver ríkisstjórn skyldi koma óskum sínum leynilega á framfæri við aðrar ríkisstjórnir og síðan yrði viðræðunum smám saman þokað áfram. Fyrsta skrefið átti að taka í júní 2002 en þessi dagsetning var síðan framlengd fram í mars 2003. Í byrjun ágúst á síðasta ári voru svo sett ný tímamörk ( the “July package”) fyrir “endurskoðaðar óskir” sem nú eiga að liggja fyrir í maí á þessu ári. Hér á landi hefur BSRB staðið framarlega í viðleitni að halda stjórnvöldum við efnið og upplýsa um kröfur Íslands. Hefur það gengið misjafnlega en þó batnað frá því sem í upphafi var og hefur utanríkisráðuneytið boðað til samræðufunda um þessi mál með fulltrúum samtaka launafólks og annarra og er það að sjálfsögðu jákvætt þótt út af borðinu standi enn krafa BSRB um að þessar viðræður fari að öllu leyti fram fyrir opnum tjöldum. Enn mun BSRB láta reyna á vilja íslensku ríkisstjórnarinnar um að opna umræðuna, en fram til þessa hefur ríkisstjórnin skýlt sér á bak við vinnureglur Alþjóðaviðskiptastofnunarinnar.
Hvað hefur breyst í kröfum Evrópusambandsins?
Stjórnarnefnd Evrópusambandsins segist nú hafa endurskoðað sínar kröfur. Hún er hins vegar enn við sama heygarðshornið og neitar að birta kröfurnar í heild sinni. PSI (Alþjóðasamband starfsfólks í almannaþjónustu) hefur - nú sem fyrr - forystu innan hinnar alþjóðlegu verkalýðshreyfingar í þessari umræðu og skiptast aðildarsamtök sambandsins svo og ýmis almannasamtök einnig á upplýsingum. 2. febrúar sendi Flæmska Norður-Suður hreyfingin frá sér fyrstu viðbrögðin sem ég hef séð við því sem Stjórnarnefnd Evrópusambandsins hefur nú sent frá sér. Stjórnarnefndin er gagnrýnd mjög harðlega fyrir pukur og ólýðræðisleg vinnubrögð. Þá segir að þrátt fyrir að Stjórnarnefnd Evrópusambandsins segist hafa dregið úr markaðsvæðingarkröfum sínum varðandi vatn gagnvart þróunarríkjum þá komi ekki fram í yfirlýsingu Stjórnarnefndarinnar hvort nokkur breyting hafi verið gerð gagnvart öðrum ríkjum en þróunarríkjunum. Þá kemur fram hörð gagnrýni á þrýsting sem settur er fram af hálfu Evrópusambandsins að markaðsvæða póstþjónustu á heimsvísu.
Hér að neðan er skýrsla Flæmsku Norður-Suður hreyfingarinnar
HÉR er grein úr Guardian frá því í apríl 2002 og HÉR og HÉR er vísan í fyrri skrif hér á síðunni en þar er jafnframt tenging inn á upplýsingasíðu BSRB sem að öllum ólöstuðum stendur í fararbroddi innan íslensku verkalýðshreyfingarinnar um að veita upplýsingar um þetta efni.
The EU’s revised GATS requests
On
This Summary in fact repeats for a large part word for word the summary of the initial EU requests that were submitted in June 2002 and does not always indicate what changes have been made.
A comparison between the two summaries suggests that the most important changes are in the postal and environmental services, but a proper comparison can only be based on the revised requests themselves which will not be published (unless they would leak out again).
Nobody’s business but our own
The Summary claims that the EU Commission has taken undertaken broad consultations to prepare its GATS positions, but in fact very little consultation has taken place, if any at all, on the formulation of the initial EU requests in 2001/2002 or their revison in 2004/2005.
That the EU was going to revise its requests came as a surprise as such a revision is not required by the WTO. The Doha Declaration contained two deadlines : one for the formulation of the inital requests (June 2002) and one for the formulation of the inital offers (March 2003). The framework agreement of
There was no public announcement of a revision of the EU requests, nor an invitation for consultation. When the Commission mentioned that it was working on such a revision at its regular « Civil Society Dialogue sessions » at the beginning of December, the information it provided was about the rational and the procedure, little was revealed about the substance of the revision. The whole exercise was presented as a matter for the Commission and the Council only. No drafts or concept papers were presented.
This resembles the situation of 2001/2002 when the EU was preparing its initial requests. No one outside the EU governments and the Commission were allowed to see the drafts. And no one was allowed to see the final requests. It is only through leaks that the general public got a look at the demands of the EU to the WTO members (see www.gatswatch.org) and that the requests could be examined (see www.wdm.org.uk) and that « post factum » comments could be made.
The consultations held about the formulation of the EU offer were just a little better. At least here the Commission did provide a consultation document based on the incoming requests from third countries, and some EU Member States allowed their parliaments and civil society organisations to see the draft offer. Apparently when it comes to making decisions about which European services are to be liberalised then there is somewhat more readiness to consult. When it comes to making demands for liberalisations abroad this readiness melts away. The EU can be persuaded to consult on its defensive interests, but not on its offensive interest. This has also to do with the fact that less organisations are interested in knowing what the EU does abroad. Except of course the EU industry. The EU Commission has indeed organised « broad consultations » with the EU services industry prior to the start of the GATS negotiations to find out what their offensive interests were. It is the wishlists of the EU industry that constitute the basis of the EU requests.
Cranking up the negotiations
The Commission has given a number of reasons why it felt a revision of the requests was needed. The only explanation given in the Summary for tabling revised requests is that this « represents a unique opportunity to clarify what kinds of improvements the EC is looking for in the revised offers to be tabled in May 2005 ».
In the « Civil Society Dialogue » session of
The Commission added that it wanted to send out revised requests in January “to be on the table of the discussions in
In the press release the Commission said: “The presentation of revised requests by the EU gives an important boost to the DDA by providing focused and targeted information to assist the EU’s WTO partners in the preparation of their revised offers for May”, and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was quoted as saying "So far, progress in services negotiations in the Doha Round has been slow. We need to ensure that services negotiations match the ambition of other negotiating areas such as agriculture. … “
What is new?
The 13 page Summary does not reveal that much.
• It does for instance say nothing about the number of revised requests. It is the accompanying press release that revealed that are only 103 revised requests instead of the initial 109. What happened to the remaining 6?
At the 9 December “Civil Society Dialogue session” the Commission said that all 109 would receive a revised request “with exception perhaps of some problematic countries like
• The Commissions attracts much attention to its claim that it has taken the level of development of individual countries into account and that it has left “many, particularly LDCs” the choice of two out of a list of five sectors, all “key infrastructure services such as telecommunication, financial services, transport, construction and environmental services…”
The requests to the LDCs would also be clearer, use a more standardised approach, model schedules and indicate the kind of commitments the EU is looking for, giving the LDCs a better starting basis.
This looks all very sympathetic of course, but the point is why would the Commission want to make requests of the LDCs at all? At the WTO LDCs are often exempt from making commitments and even the chair of the Gats negotiating group does not seem to expect the LDCs to make any offers.
• The Commission makes less publicity for the changes made to the requests in the environmental sector (they are not mentioned in the press release) even if it is here that the Summary gives most of its explanation. The initial EU requests in this sector where the most controversial as they also adressed the provision of drinking water. Throughout the EU GATS campaigners demanded the withdrawal of this request, particularly in the
The initial requests were particularly short and asked countries “to make commitments for market access and national treatment in mode 3” and “to make commitments in mode 4” (“as in the horizontal section”).
According to the Summary, the requests now “include a number of clarifications and a reduction of the scope of the requests, especially for LDCs :
• the requests places more focus on advisory (“consulting” services), where commitments are notably requested for cross-border supply. In the same vein, the request under other environmental services is restricted to environmental impact assessment and environmental risk analysis, two key activities for sustainable development :
• for infrastructure services (water and solid/hazardous waste), the request makes a clearer distinction between services supplied directly to business (industrial customers notably), where more ambitious commitments are sought, and the traditional public services (notably municipal services), where the request is more focussed.
In particular, countries (or their local authorities) would keep the possibility
- (i) to apply exclusive rights (for instance through concessions)
- (ii) to choose freely the management arrangements for the service ( for instance : municipalities managing directly the service, “régie”, public operator, cooperative, concession to a private operator),
- (iii) to choose the mode of attribution of the exclusive rights (open competition or not) and
- (iv) to change from one mode of management to another (for instance, at the end of a concession contract, to return to a public or cooperative management mode). However, in cases where the authorities decide to award exclusive rights through a competitive procedure (call for tenders), foreign operators would be granted national treatment in the bidding procedure (possibility to bid) and, if they are chosen, in the operation of the service ;”
This explanation is confusing. Making a difference between industrial consumers and the general public is not without problems as the interests of the two might collide while taking out the industrial consumers from a water distributing service might come down to “cherry picking” (privatising the more profitable parts). Furthermore WTO members do all indeed have the right to “keep the possibility” to choose…, to apply rights etc.To say this in the request is to say the obvious, and saying it might serve more to persuade a country to make an offer than to caution it against water liberalisation.
This becomes even more clear in the further explanation of the Commission that “for the more vulnerable countries (including all LDCs), environmental services would be an optional sector to commit, within a group of 5 sectors. Furthermore, within environmental services, some sub-sectors would also be optional.”
The “would be” in these sentences actually underline the opposite of what they suggest, namely that the Commission IS expecting that LDCs DO make offers in two sectors and that they DO choose some of the options provided.
What really matters here is how insisting the Commission will be when explaining its requests to the WTO members during the coming bilaterals in
And here again the Summary remains vague: the intial requests asked water liberalisation of 72 countries out of the 109; how many countries out of the 103 received revised water requests? Could the Commission have dropped water requests of some individual countries requests?
Finally it is interesting to see that the Summary of the revised requests has dropped two offensive formulations from the summary of the initial requests:
- [dropped: “Nevertheless, a number of barriers and obstacles to trade in environmental services remain, and the main objective of the EC for the negotiations is to reduce the barriers which European operators face in third countries' markets”.]
- [dropped: “The EC is seeking the removal of discrimination of, and restrictions to, European companies wishing to supply environmental services.”]
• Another important change is in the Postal and Courier Services as was already pointed out by Erik Wesselius of CEO:
New EU GATS request for 'pro-competive' rules threaten public postal monopolies
As part of its revised GATS requests to other WTO members, the European Union is requesting the adoption of a Reference Paper in postal and courier services incorporating so-called "pro-competitive" principles.
The relevant excerpt, in section (e), pp. 5-6, is as follows: The EU is requesting the adoption of "a so-called reference paper containing commitments on anti-competitive practices, licensing, independence of the regulator, while recognising explicitly the right of Members to develop and safeguard universal service.... The EC had favoured the principle of a reference paper in postal and courier since 2001 [see S/CSS/W/61] and has recently proposed a text for such a reference paper." )
While the EU claims that its revised requests "do not seek to dismantle public services, nor to privatise state-owned companies" a recent analysis raises serious concerns about the reference paper approach.
The analysis, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, concludes that the application of "pro-competitive" rules in the sector "would undermine public service monopolies and jeopardize accountable, democratic regulation."
Written for both a Canadian and international audience, the report concludes that such rules would:
· "[u]ndercut the fundamental basis of
· [u]ndermine Canada Post and threaten its ability to meet universal service obligations and otherwise fulfill [its] ... public service mandate.
The study also concludes that "pro-competitive" rules would:
· [d]iminish the international regulatory ability of the United Nation's Universal Postal Union (UPU), subordinating it to the WTO."
The analysis examines the recent experience with "pro-competitive" rules in the
"Return to Sender: The impact of GATS 'pro-competitive regulation' on postal and other public services",
by Jim Grieshaber-Otto and Scott Sinclair, 220 pages, ISBN: 0-88627-343-9, is available free online (pdf format, 1467 Kb) at:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=111&pA=BB736455 . Printed copies are also available, for Cdn$19.95, from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Suite 410, 75 Albert St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1P 5E7.
• Other changes:
In the Distribution Services:
“The revised requests addressed to many developing countries in this sector focus on the wholesale and retail sub-sectors.”
[Was : EC requests in this sector cover all distribution sub-sectors, namely commission agencies, wholesale, retail and franchising]. Does this mean that the Commission drop franchising and commission agencies?
In the Financial Services:
Here too it is striking that the Commission has dropped the formulation of its offensive interests and added a more development friendly wording instead. However : “The requests for most countries have remained largely unchanged in the revised requests, except that some information requests have been removed and initial offers from other WTO members acknowledged. For the more vulnerable countries, financial services are one of the sector options recommended to them. A model schedule, which covers only a limited number of financial services, has been attached to the request”
[dropped: … the EC is seeking in the current GATS negotiations to remove significant restrictions on the establishment of companies in the whole financial services sector, to liberalise cross-border trade on certain activities, such as reinsurance and provision of financial information, and to encourage regulatory frameworks underpinning market access commitments.]
In transport services:
“At the same time the EU has introduced significant flexibility in its request to developing economies: to allow an approach with tailormade,simple and suitable commitments”.
In the Energy Services:
“As far as the more vulnerable countries are concerned the revised requests have only been addressed to a limited number of countries with important energy resources”.
[ Was: As far as it concerns developing countries requests only cover a reduced number of them, while only two LDC's are subject to very limited requests.] Does this mean the Commission dropped the energy requests for the LDC’s? (We actually counted only one in 2002:
In Mode 4:
“In the revised requests, the EC is encouraging WTO Members to schedule their commitments according to a common format (listing explicit commitments by type of service supplier”.
Again this is only a clarification, not a substantial change.
Marc Maes
Policy Department
11.11.11- Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement
02.02.2005