Services
The international trade in services is big business, comprising between half and three quarters of all economic activity in richer and poorer countries. This is a lucrative market which the world’s transnational corporations want to control. They want services to be treated purely as commodities to be bought and sold in a competitive market.
Services have been described as anything that you cannot drop on your foot, including banks, education, energy, healthcare, water, rubbish collection, libraries, railways, airlines, tourism, TV and radio.
Under the WTO’s GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), and the services provisions in bilateral and regional free trade agreements, governments agree to open the economy to foreign suppliers of certain services. In those services, foreign suppliers must be given at least as favourable treatment as it gives to local suppliers. Governments cannot set limits on the numbers of service suppliers operating in its market or impose requirements for local content.
Free trade in services threatens to restrict a government’s ability to ensure access to affordable, adequate basic services for all its citizens by removing any restrictions and internal government regulations in the area of service delivery considered to be "barriers to trade". These include measures which pursue environmental, social or community objectives.
Services liberalization provisions of bilateral FTAs often go further than governments’ GATS commitments. For example, while Australia excluded water ‘services’ from its GATS offer, this is included under its FTA with the USA, opening up Australia’s water resources and utilities to US-based TNCs.
last update: May 2012
Articles
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31-Aug-2016 IUF Emergency services turn life-threatening under US private equity owners — and a global Trade in Services Agreement would globalize the damage
Vital public services like firefighting and ambulances are being handed over to a small number of transnational companies worldwide, a trend that will be hugely boosted by TPP, TTIP, CETA and TiSA. -
15-Jul-2016 Lexology Financial services: the challenge of data flows
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced a proposal to resolve the data localization issue in financial institutions in future trade agreements. -
4-May-2016 EPSU New EPSU working paper on CETA and TTIP: Potential impacts on health and social services
New working paper highlights the potential harmful impact of CETA and TTIP (and other trade and investment agreements) on healthcare and social services. -
17-Mar-2016 The Jakarta Post Whose healthy ASEAN Community?
The liberalization of health care under the ASEAN Economic Community is clearly biased toward curative services as being more profitable than health promotion. -
10-Mar-2016 Rabble Thousands march against water privatization in Peru as TPP and ICSID ruling looms
More than 2,000 people marched in Lima, Peru in opposition to the government’s plan to privatize public water services. -
16-Sep-2015 Sputnik Con el TiSA, EEUU busca quebrar al Mercosur, indica economista
Detrás del Acuerdo sobre Comercios de Servicios (TiSA, por sus siglas en inglés) está la intención de EEUU de quebrar geopolíticamente al Mercosur, aprovechando que el bloque regional no está pasando por un buen momento. -
4-Sep-2015 El Destape Web TiSA and the new development bank: two antagonistic proposals
The central banks of BRICS bloc bet on the New Development Bank, while the central countries put their money on TiSA: free trade in services. -
4-Sep-2015 Diario Información Free trade treaties and the health system
While mass media are almost entirely absorbed with cases of corruption, trade and investment agreements slip by, almost unnoticed. TTIP, CETA and TiSA are being negotiated throughout the world, in complete opacity and in the absence of democratic checks. -
26-Aug-2015 TNI How TiSA strolls off with our services
While TTIP is currently the center of attention, our world leaders discuss TiSA, an extensive service agreement meant to put (public) services, like the water supply, in the hands of the international market. -
5-Aug-2015 War on Want TTIP, CETA, TISA and public services
What is the threat from free trade agreements to public services? -
30-Jul-2015 El Destape Web TiSA vs. Nuevo Banco de Desarrollo: dos propuestas antagónicas
Los bancos centrales del bloque BRICS apuestan al Nuevo Banco del Desarrollo, mientras que los países centrales al libre comercio de servicios, llamado TiSA. -
22-Jul-2015 Piensa Chile Cómo EE.UU. pretende librarse de sus obligaciones con la OMC mediante el tratado TISA
Cada vez es más evidente que las negociaciones sobre el acuerdo internacional sobre el comercio de servicios (TISA, por sus siglas en inglés) son un intento de presionar a los países en vías de desarrollo para permitir una mayor liberalización de los sectores de interés de EE.UU. -
14-Jul-2015 Canadian Union of Public Employees CUPE delegates in Colombia to oppose secret trade deal
Four national public sector unions have joined forces with sister unions in Colombia to fight against the privatization of public services and to strengthen each other’s struggles to defend human and labour rights. -
24-Jun-2015 Herald Scotland Cut NHS from trade deal say doctors
Doctors attending the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual representative meeting in Liverpool have voted overwhelmingly to urge the Government to remove health and social care services from a controversial trade agreement between the EU and US -
20-Mar-2015 Diario Información Tratados de libre comercio y sistema sanitario
Mientras los grandes medios de comunicación están ocupados casi exclusivamente con los casos de corrupción pasan desapercibidos los acuerdos comerciales y de inversión que se están negociando en el mundo, con total opacidad y sin control democrático: Tratado Transatlántico de Comercio e Inversión (TTIP), Tratado de Comercio Canadá Europa (CETA) y el Tratado sobre Comercio de Servicios (TiSA) y otros. -
12-Nov-2014 The BMJ The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and UK healthcare
It is only now, in the context of EU-US negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), that the health implications of free trade agreements have become a front line political concern in the UK. -
6-Oct-2014 The Conversation Make no mistake, the TTIP is a move in the wrong direction
While it would be wrong to say that the TTIP will lead to the wholesale privatisation of public services, it would potentially constrain governments’ ability to reverse past policy decisions to open up public services to competition as this would become a treaty-based commitment. -
10-Dec-2012 SOMO New free trade agreements threaten financial reforms
While financial reforms are ongoing in the EU and many other countries, little attention is paid to free trade agreements that continue to liberalise financial services as well as restrict regulatory freedom (‘policy space’) and controls on capital movements. -
23-Oct-2012 Tribune 242 Minister targeting top Swiss banks’ ’new business units’
Bahamas’ Minister of Financial Services is this week aiming to encourage three of the largest Swiss private banks to domicile “new business units” in the Bahamas, under the auspices of a new deal under the EU EPA. -
10-Jul-2011 Trade in Services in US FTA with Jordan
The US-JO FTA includes a provision for trade in services in article 3
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Coalition of Service Industries
CSI is the leading US business organization dedicated to the reduction of barriers to US services exports, and to the development of constructive domestic US policies, including tax policies, that enhance the global competitiveness of its members. Website covers bilateral FTAs. -
ESF
The European Services Forum (ESF) is a network of representatives from the European services sector. We are committed to actively promoting the interests of the European services sector and the liberalisation of services markets throughout the world in connection with the GATS negotiations.
Links
News from the movements
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19-Jun-2017 OMAL
Aprendizajes de las resistencias feministas latinoamericanas a los Tratados de Libre Comercio e Inversión
¿De qué manera afrontar este momento como feministas, como conjunto de movimientos sociales, como ciudadanía crítica? -
13-Jun-2017 Argentina Mejor sin TLC
Argentina: Encuentro Nacional Preparatorio para la Semana de Acción contra la OMC
Invitamos a todas las organizaciones y movimientos, agrupaciones, partidos y articulaciones de todas las provincias al Encuentro Nacional de Planificación contra la OMC en Argentina, que tendrá lugar el sábado 24 de Junio a partir de las 9.30 en el Aula HU 402 de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (UBA) en Santiago del Estero 1029, CABA -
6-Jun-2017 Tele Sur
Hundreds protest EU-Canada free trade deal in Madrid
People from over 400 trade unions and social organizations took part in the protest to demand that the Spanish Government block the free trade deal.
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1-Jun-2017 Focus on the Global South
Civil society interventions on the RCEP
In the recent “RCEP 18th Round of Talks,” members of civil society organizations and social movements presented their positions vis-à-vis the RCEP. -
30-May-2017 No al TTIP
La plataforma No al TTIP, CETA, TiSA de Madrid convoca para la manifestación del 3J
Miembros de la campaña No al TTIP, CETA, TiSA de Madrid participan en un canutazo de prensa con los concejales de Ahora Madrid, Carlos Sánchez Mato, Rita Maestre y Pablo Carmona para apoyar la manifestación del próximo sábado 3 de junio en Madrid denunciando que el tratado comercio UE-Canadá (CETA) -
30-May-2017 Radio NZ
Pacific NGOs maintain opposition to PACER Plus
Dozens of civil society groups in the Pacific have reiterated their criticism of the PACER Plus trade deal, and said it is likely to fail the people of the Pacific. -
30-May-2017 MSF
MSF response on the India-EFTA free trade agreement negotiations in Liechtenstein this week
Through this deal, Swiss pharmaceutical corporations are working to erode India’s ability to produce and supply generic medicines for people across the developing world. -
29-May-2017 La Vía Campesina
Declaración de La Vía Campesina en contra del Acuerdo de Libre Comercio entre la UE y Japón
El ALC UE-Japón hará incrementar de forma significante las importaciones agrícolas, lo que causará un sufrimiento extremo en las familias campesinas. El acuerdo podría ir incluso más allá que el TPP, el peor acuerdo en cuanto a la destrucción agrícola.
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