Services / GATS / TISA

PSI, 1 July 2015 – Yet another series of leaks confirm PSI’s repeated concerns on the restriction of governments’ right to regulate in the public interest as well as underlining the lack of transparency surrounding the Trade In Service Agreement (TISA) negotiations.

Press coverage across the world around Wkileaks expose of TISA negotiation texts, largely expressed concern over the impact of secret trade negotiations. However, Edward Alden's "WikiLeaks and Trade: A Healthy Dose of Sunshine," posted at the Council on Foreign Relations, stands out like a sore thumb among the other analysis. This response underlines that Alden's cursory "reading" of the texts exhibits a lack of understanding of the complexity of trade in services rules.

Today, as Ministers meet to further a controversial and little known proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) on the sidelines of the annual Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting, Wikileaks released (wikileaks.org/tisa/) a trove of negotiating texts, including annexes covering a wide range of issues on domestic regulation, financial services, air and maritime transportation, electronic commerce, transparency, telecommunications, professional services, and the natural movement of persons (called “Mode4” in trade agreements.)

The ITF warned that classified documents published today by Wikileaks on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) foresee consolidated power for big transport industry players and threaten the public interest, jobs and a voice for workers.

A large majority of developing countries on Thursday (7 May) firmly rejected demands from the United States, the European Union, and other developed countries for binding the autonomous liberalisation measures taken by them in the services sectors after the Uruguay Round of commitments. The developing countries made clear that they are not willing to undertake "commitments for free" in the Doha services negotiations, several services negotiators told SUNS.

A large majority of developing and least-developed countries at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have demanded that the Annex C of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration must remain the basis for drawing-up the post-Bali work programme on services, according to trade envoys familiar with the non-attributable summary issued by the chair of the Doha services negotiations on 27 April.

As the technical experts and negotiators engaged in the controversial plurilateral initiative on Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) prepare a report on their overall progress during the last three years, it has emerged that there will be sharp "asymmetries" in the levels of ambition in different services sectors, according to several members familiar with the negotiations. In this brief D Ravi Kanth provides an overview of levels of ambition in current TISA negotiations,

The proposal, reportedly tabled by the government of Turkey, was discussed by EU member states last September at the Geneva TISA negotiations. It suggests an annex on health care services in the TISA that would promote offshoring by facilitating patients’ travel abroad to access health services.

"Open TISA to public debate", was the key demand of the participants at the first Global Trade in Services Forum, in Geneva on 17th October 2014, co-organised by Public Services International (PSI), Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network.