| So,
You Thought Enron Was Bad... LEAKED TRADE SECRETS |
|
Use Browser X to Close This Archive and Return to Forum.
GLOBAL NEWS - from Nexus New Times, May-June 2003, page 9
LEAKED TRADE SECRETS PROVE THREAT TO PUBLIC SERVICES
Secret leaked documents have revealed European demands in the WTO negotiations that have been quietly underway in Geneva since 2000. These documents provide a harsh wake-up call to the world about what is really at stake in these global "commercial" negotiations.
When most people think about trade they conjure up images of ships ferrying steel beams and sacks of coffee between nations and agreements about cutting tariffs and quotas on trade in goods. In reality, however, today's "trade agreements" such as the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 1995 World Trade Organization (WTO), have little to do with trade. Instead they focus on granting foreign companies new rights and [privileges within the boundaries of other countries. They attempt to constrain federal, state and local regulatory policies and and to commodify public services and common resources - such as water - into new tradable units for profit.
The leaked documents reveal negotiations that will expand the scope of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), one of the 21 pacts enforced by the WTO. The "GATS-2000" talks are promoted by the United States and European nations on behalf of multi-national service-sector conglomerates. Up for grabs at the negotiating table is worldwide privatization and deregulation of public energy and water utilities, postal services, higher education and state alcohol distribution controls; rights for foreign firms to local business loans, elimination of specific state laws about land use, professional licensing, and consumer protections; and extreme deregulation of private sector service industries such as insurance, banking, mutual funds and securities.
Europe's demands of the USA and 108 other WTO signatories provide "smoking gun" evidence, after months of speculation and concern about how these secretive WTO negotiations threaten essential public services upon which people worldwide rely daily. Think of GATS as a Trojan Horse. Appealing dubbed as a "trade agreement", it actually contains a massive attack on the most basic functions of local and state governments. You might ask what the GATS provision creating a new right for corporations to establish a "commercial presence" within another country has to do with cross-border trade. The answer: Nothing. The terms allow a foreign firm to set up subsidiaries in other countries or acquire local companies under more favorable terms than their domestic competitors get. For instance, once a service sector is covered under GATS, governments may not limit the number or size of service providers - meaning that applying zoning rules on beach front development or limits on concessions in national parks to foreign firms would be forbidden. This is why many people consider GATS to be a backdoor attempt to revive the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the radical investment pact that was killed by public opposition in 1998.
The GATS not only promotes privatization of public services, but it makes reversing failed privatization experiments extremely difficult for national, state, and local governments. Under GATS if cities seek to bring a privately operated utility back into the public realm, they can only do so if their government agrees to compensate all WTO countries for their companies lost business opportunities. For example, Atlanta just reversed a disastrous water privatization involving a French company. If the United States agrees to Europe's GATS-2000 demands to subject water to GATS disciplines, such reversals could only occur if compensation was offered not just to that company but to all WTO signatory countries. The secret European document also revealed a demand to include retail electricity services under GATS, meaning the privatization of nightmares like California's energy deregulation would be nearly impossible to fix. GATS also sets strict constraints on governmental regulation in the services sector - even when those policies treat domestic and foreign services the same. GATS allows federal, state and local regulations to be challenged as barriers to trade if they are not designed in the least trade-restrictive manner.
The leaked EU documents have prompted civil society groups worldwide to call for a moratorium on the "GATS-2000" talks and for public process involving state and local officials. The clock is ticking.
(Source: Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, March 6, 2003,
http://www.citizen.org/trade, via guerrillanews.com/globalization/doc1147.html)
published in Nexus New Times, May-June 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com
