Local services 'auctioned off' to big business

International development and environmental campaigners from south Wales will stage a piece of eye-catching and original street theatre to highlight the threat posed to local basic services in Wales by an international trade agreement currently being negotiated at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva. The action is part of a European-wide day of protest about the controversial WTO negotiations which could see waste services, water and planning regulations placed under the control of the WTO.

Campaigners from local groups of the World Development Movement (WDM), People and Planet and Friends of the Earth will call for a halt to UK Government support for the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

The protest will take place at National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay and will highlight
that:

• GATS puts profit before people's basic needs and rights. It will lever open basic services to
  the free market, something that is highly controversial around the world. Recent leaks of key documents show that previous promises that the EU would not "request" opening up basic services like water in the developing world have, disturbingly, not been honoured.
• GATS undermines democracy at regional, national and international levels by being effectively irreversible, locking in future governments to its free market rules.
• Negotiations are taking place in secret with no proper public consultation or parliamentary
  scrutiny. While the UK Government offers reassurance that basic UK services like health and education will not be "offered", activists will point out that GATS by nature demands progressively deeper opening up of services, so what is "safe" today may well not be safe tomorrow.

Campaigners will 'become' the World Trade Organisation and Department of Trade and Industry who are holding a 'basic services auction' for the benefit of a brace of baying, corpulent big-business 'fat cats' desperate to get their hands on the essential services up for sale.

The protest is part of a European day of action against GATS and similar protests will be taking place outside every Regional Government Office in England.

Clint Oldridge of South Wales WDM said:

"Our actions will show how the UK Government is backing this World Trade Organisation agreement that will threaten public services and poor people around the world at the expense of offering a bargain basement deal to big business. All around the world, we all rely on basic services such as clean water, health, education and public transport. But for people in the poorest countries they make the daily difference between life and death. This agreement could harm these basic services here and abroad because like our auction it is rigged in favour of multinational companies who care more about profits than people and the environment."

Alex Mylles of Cardiff University People and Planet added:

"This agreement is undemocratic. We elect councillors, Assembly Members and MPs to make
decisions about how local public services are provided, not groups of international lawyers and trade negotiators in Switzerland. It is time to put people before profit and call a halt to GATS!

"It is time that Assembly Members faced up to these issues. Recent Assembly documents on trade have failed to even mention GATS, despite the fact that the agreement could have a profound effect on services in Wales. We will be calling on our AMs to wake up and get involved in the debate."

Following the protest, local representatives of WDM, People and Planet and Friends of the Earth will hand letters to Assembly Members explaining their concerns about the implications of GATS for the provision and regulation of services at a national and
local level.

Notes

1/ Photo opportunity: 12.50 - 1.30 PM, National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff CF99
1NA

2/ Along with other members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Britain signed up to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 1994. Negotiations to extend the agreement restart at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva on 21 March 2001. The agreement applies to all levels of government - local, regional and national, and covers
160 service sectors. It extends the free trade principles of the WTO from trade in goods to include trade in services. GATS will have a profound effect on all governments' ability to regulate their service economy and on the potential of poor countries to receive benefits from foreign investment in their service sectors. GATS has unexplored implications for rich and poor governments' ability to provide affordable and accessible public services. The EC's website describes GATS as "first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business."

At Westminster, 262 MPs from all the main parties have signed an Early Day Motion calling for an "independent and thorough assessment" of the impact of this important and far-reaching agreement on key services in the UK and in developing countries. On December 23rd eight UK General Secretaries, including those of Unison, TGWU, CWU and NATFHE wrote a public letter to the Guardian expressing their concern about the impact of GATS on health, education, transport, broadcasting and postal services. They called for a halt to GATS negotiations, describing them as "reckless and undemocratic".