International

Sometimes the most inane things hit the front pages, while important matters are relegated to the lower columns of the economics section.

This is certainly the case when it comes to the activities of a special working group of the World Trade Organisation on global liberalisation of services. This is just like with the Bolkenstein Directive, which sought to liberalise services within the European Union and which we successfully combatted, except that in this case it concerns a world-wide measure. It’s high time that we launched a consciousness-raising campaign, because in the face of such an accord, public services threaten to become increasingly marketised, making it harder for governments to pursue their own social and environmental policies.

Of course it sound all very fine: most money in an advanced economy is now earned via services and if you abolish barriers to trade in the provision of such services globally, you will gain economies of scale and we’ll all get richer. It’s not quite as simple as that, however, because those trade barriers are there for a reason. So we want the right to determine what we see as a public service. Brussels has already forced us to ‘liberalise’ services such as telecommunications, postal services, energy and sections of public transport, which are clearly in their very nature public services. Here we want to be able to make demands on providers, for example in relation to training and experience. And we want service providers to respect environmental regulations prevailing in the Netherlands. Already, the trade union movement is warning that these achievements could be lost as a result of the global; agreement on services.

If public services are not excluded, and the definition of what constitutes a public service isn’t left to national governments to determine, it will be soon be the case that neither The Hague nor even Brussels will decide whether our water supply will be privatised, but rather the WTO through its arbitrage committee. In addition, an agreement of this kind invariably contains a clause covering the protection of investors. This will give multinationals the right to challenge national laws which they see as in conflict with their investments. Australia, for instance, was confronted with a claim for billions from the tobacco industry following the introduction of proposals for stringent anti-smoking regulations. Social rights and environmental laws could also be combatted in this manner.

Negotiations were prepared behind closed doors by ‘The Real Good Friends of Services’, a group of mostly rich states, though it also includes a few developing countries. It’s nice to know that these countries are friends of services, but let’s hope that they’re also friends to the environment and to workers’ rights. As with all trade matters, the European Commission speaks for the EU. The negotiating mandate is determined by the member states, which means the Dutch national Parliament will have a chance to influence the talks. Beyond that it’s of the greatest importance that we see street protests, just as we have in the past against the ideas of a rich country’s club, the OECD, which wanted to see a multilateral investment treaty. It might all seem abstract, but that’s merely a tactic on the part of the multinationals that have an interest in clouding the issues. Yet this concerns matters that the SP at least holds dear: a sound system of public provision and a high-quality social and environmental policy. Sufficient reason to get on to the streets outside the WTO in Geneva, as well as in Brussels and The Hague. When are we going to wake up?