GATS: opposing liberalisation of public services under the WTO's aegis

To:  members of national parliaments (MPs) and the European parliament (MEPs)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) seeks to liberalise public services. Education, health care, water supply, waste treatment, energy, transportation, scientific research and postal services are under serious threat. Up to now the GATS negotiations have been undertaken in total secrecy, with no democratic oversight whatsoever.

Negotiations started with a "requests" stage, ended on June, 30th 2002, during which each WTO-country addressed its requests for liberalisation to other WTO members. Then came the "offers" stage, which will end on March, 31st 2003, when all member states are supposed to have defined the sectors they accept to liberalise on their territory. Finally, the full negotiations will start, first bilateral, then multilateral and will last until 31 December 2004. Concessions to any member state must be granted to all, under the "most favoured nation" clause. Members of the European and national Parliaments will only have their say at the very end of the process, when negotiations are completed.

In our view, the European Union's role is not to push for the deregulation of public services abroad, particularly in developing countries, but to strengthen co-operation and to promote technology transfers to help southern countries in essential areas such as access to water, to renewable energies, to health, to education.

Public services are essential elements of society and of each country's cohesion: every country, with its citizens and elected representatives must remain free to choose and must be able to make its own choices concerning them.

We - members of the civil society - are concerned about the lack of transparency in the way GATS negotiations are currently conducted. As we wish to improve the situation in this respect and to preserve or restore the efficiency of key public services we ask our MPs (members of national parliaments) and MEPs (members of European parliament) to sign a petition demanding:

- that the European Parliament be kept informed, and be called upon to give its opinion before any decision is taken concerning the "offers" of liberalisation currently being prepared by the Commission. The parliament should intervene before these offers are submitted to the Council of ministers via the "133 committee" and before they are sent to other WTO countries (deadline: March, 31st 2003);
- that all liberalisation requests addressed to the European Union by other WTO member countries be communicated by the Commission to the European Parliament and by the respective governments to the national parliaments;
- A debate in plenary session of the European Parliament with the Commission, and each national Parliament, in public session, with its governments, on the mandate granted to the Commission for services negotiation;
- that the European Union ceases to ask for the liberalisation of third countries' public services under the aegis of the WTO;
- that the European Union asks for the abrogation of GATS article I.3.c, so that the definition of "A service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority," that is to say all those which do not fall under the agreement, is not restricted and allows each member state genuinely to protect public services like education, health, energy, water, postal services and public transports, etc.
- that there be no more binding GATS commitment until a full and independent economic, social and environmental impact assessment is conducted.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The GATS: opposing liberalisation of public services under the WTO's aegis Petition to members of national parliaments (MPs) and the European parliament (MEPs) was created by several NGO's and individuals and written by written by MEPs, distributed by Barbara Waschmann.  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no express or implied endorsement of this petition by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. The petition scripts are created by Mike Wheeler at Artifice, Inc.  For Technical Support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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