Wikileaks
today released secret draft text from the Trades in Services Agreement
negotiations that confirms the concerns first raised by the global trade union
Public Services International in the recent ground-breaking report ‘TISA
versus Public Services.’
Fronting
themselves as the ´Really Good Friends of Services,’ a group of 50
countries—representing an estimated 70 per cent share of the world’s trade in
services—are secretly negotiating the TISA. This deal will open up a wide range
of public services to be sold permanently for private profit.
This massive trade deal will put public health care, child care, postal,
broadcasting, water, power, transport and other services at risk. The TISA
will lock in the privatisations of services—even in cases where private service
delivery has failed—meaning governments can never return water, energy, health,
education or other services to public hands.
The TISA
will also restrict a government’s right to regulate stronger standards in the
public’s interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations,
licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power
plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses. The
proposed deal will also restrict a government’s ability to regulate key
sectors including financial, energy, telecommunications and cross-border data
flows.
The TISA will specifically limit
the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry at
exactly the time when the global economy is still recovering from a crisis
caused by financial deregulation.
Responding to today’s leak,
Public Services International General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli says, “This agreement is
all about making it easier for corporations to make profits and operate with
impunity across borders. The aim of
public services should not be to make profits for large multinational
corporations. Ensuring that failed
privatisations can never be reversed is free market ideology gone mad.
“The secrecy surrounding
these negotiations to extend controversial GATS arrangements into a wide range
of areas previously rejected is anti-democratic in the extreme. If our
governments are doing nothing wrong – why are they hiding these texts?
Pavanelli adds, “The attempts
by governments still reeling from the global economic crisis to further deregulate
the financial system shows that our trade ministers really have been captured
our by large corporate interests. When you understand this, you understand why
the texts are being kept secret. This is a bad deal for people and our planet.
We demand that the texts be released for public scrutiny now.”
A new analysis by Professor
Jane Kelsey, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, shows that the TISA risks
stopping governments from tightening rules on the financial sector. Read
today’s leaked text and Professor Kelsey’s analysis here: http://wikileaks.org/tisa-financial
TISA
rally photos are available for media use (Photo credit: Public Services
International):
More TISA graphics and materials
French : www.world-psi.org/fr/issue/ACS
Spanish: www.world-psi.org/es/issue/TISA
