Letter to Pascal Lamy re GATS1 January 2003
Commissioner Lamy
European Commission
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1060 Brussels
20 January 2003
Dear Commissioner Lamy,
Re: EC GATS consultation
Following the European Commission's release (12/11/02) of a consultation document on the ongoing WTO GATS negotiations, I would like to register our concerns and raise some critical issues that must be considered urgently in the current negotiations.
Lack of information
First of all, the consultation document fails to give critical information about the requests made of the EU and does not provide key information about the current GATS negotiations. Several critical pieces of information are missing from the Commission's paper, and what little information is presented causes further worry by showing the huge scope of the current GATS negotiations. For example, the summaries do not state which countries are making the requests. In order to understand the scope and context of the current negotiations, as well as to understand what is at stake, is it important for the public to know who is requesting what.
In addition, information about domestic regulation is missing despite growing public concern about the regulatory impacts of the agreement currently under negotiation. This relates both to ongoing negotiations on domestic regulation (Article VI.4) and attempts to expand the agreement to cover services directly contracted by governments (ie, government procurement). The EC has already tabled positions and made its views known to industry on these aspects of GATS. We wonder why this is not mentioned in the consultation.
In general, this public consultation pales in comparison to the exchanges that have taken place between business groups and the EC since the launch of GATS 2000 (for examples see www.gatswatch.org/).
To this end the following information must be put in the public domain:
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the 109 requests made by the EU of other WTO Members - tabled on the 4 July 2002;
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the requests received by the EU from other WTO Members - which were tabled after June 30 2002, and on which this consultation reflects;
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the draft offers currently being prepared by the EC in consultation with EU Member States;
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the final offers that the EU makes in response to these requests - a process due to begin at the end of March 2003 and which will be ongoing throughout the current negotiations (due to end in January 2005).
This is particularly pressing in light of the number and urgency of the the responses from European citizens to this consultation exercise.
Inadequacy of "consultation" process
In addition to the problems noted above, the time frame for responding to this consultation is far too short, and there is no clear indication of how
submissions will feed into EU decision making. Neither have all the relevant parts of the GATS process been taken into account in the European
consultation. For example, the consultation document draws on the 21 requests tabled at the time of the Commission's writing. Since then at least another 9 have been received. We wonder how the Commission intends to inform the public about information in these later requests and what time frame will be used for these parts of the consultation. While we note that the consultation process has been extended until 31 January (essentially by two weeks), this is in no way sufficient considering the import and scope of the GATS undertaking.
Lack of democracy
As the initial deadline for offers approaches, issues such as these demand that the Commission cannot take a position in these negotiations without complete parliamentary and public scrutiny. This would entail, at a minimum:
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improving democratic control through effective participation by citizens at the national level;
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increasing external transparency (eg, by making actual negotiating documents publicly available);
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developing effective mechanisms which ensure that trade negotiators incorporate more than business interests in their negotiating strategies; and
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taking into account environmental and social concerns raised by GATS.
To this end, before negotiations proceed any further, there must be:
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a full and complete assessment of the actual and potential environmental and social impacts of the GATS agreements, including impacts on local communities and developing countries in all sectors currently covered or proposed for inclusion in the agreement;
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exclusion of commitments in any services related to the extraction of energy fuels, minerals, ores and water, as well as nuclear energy;
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clear and strong exceptions in the GATS ensuring that no reasonable environmental laws and regulations will be undermined or challenged by GATS rules, including an exception for dealing with measures related to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources; and
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removal of Article VI provisions, including a necessity test, that restrict the right of government to adopt laws and regulations protecting the public interest and the environment.
Given the inadequacy of the information provided and of the process proposed, we call on the Commission not to use this one off consultation to claim that the public is adequately informed and participating in the current GATS negotiations process.
Until the Commission releases actual negotiating documents and engages in a genuinely democratic and accountable process, attempts at "consultation"
such as this will be seen for what they are: political exercises designed to deflect increasing public concern about GATS and the WTO more widely as well as dissatisfaction with undemocratic and untransparent trade policy development.
Yours sincerely,
Eve Mitchell
Corporate Globalisation Campaigner
Friends of the Earth
England, Wales and Northern Ireland
cc Joao-Luis Aguiar-Machado, as Head of Services Unit
Patricia Hewitt, as Minister for Trade, UK
Malcolm McKinnon, as coordinator of UK GATS consultation
Caroline Lucas, MEP
