Trade in Services Agreement

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The Trade in Services Agreement ( TiSA ; German Agreement on Trade in Services ) is a collection of agreements under negotiation in the form of an international agreement between 23 parties including the USA and the European Union . The TiSA agreement aims to liberalize services worldwide and expose them to greater competition. The 23 world trading states, which call themselves “really good friends of the trade in services”, operate 70% of global services, including sectors such as transport, finance, education and health. "The USA alone [...] hope [...] that Tisa will increase their exports of services by 600 billion euros."

The Trade in Services Agreement is a successor to the General Agreement on Trade in Services of the WTO, GATS for short. This was decided in 1995.

history

Originally, the agreement was a US proposal. Negotiations on the various contractual terms have been going on since the beginning of 2012. Most of the meetings take place in Geneva. Since then, various negotiation meetings have taken place in camera. These took place outside of usual places - such as WTO facilities - such as the Australian embassy. The participants want, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, "to release the negotiating papers to the public no earlier than five years after the conclusion of the contract".

On June 19, 2014, the platform Wikileaks published a previously kept secret draft contract on TiSA from the chapter on financial services on its website. Until then, TiSA negotiations had been almost completely without public attention. The Wikileaks publication showed for the first time the stipulation agreed by the parties on the confidentiality of the negotiation process: The secrecy ends five years after entry into force or - if TiSA does not come into effect - five years after the end of the negotiations. Only Switzerland has published all negotiating positions entered since June 2012.

On December 17, 2014 Netzpolitik.org published the status of the negotiations in a journalistic partnership with the NGO Associated Whistleblowing Press and its local Spanish platform filtrala.org . These documents showed that the services affected by TiSA go well beyond what has been previously assumed and emerged from Wikileaks publications. For TiSA, free competition also means free flow of data; According to the proposals revealed, no country should generally be able to prevent a company from creating information of any kind out of the country. The data of communication providers should be able to be exchanged between countries unhindered, so it says: No signer may prevent a service provider of another signatory from transmitting, accessing, processing or storing information. This includes personal data if the process is related to the execution of the business of the service provider.

In mid-2016, TiSA is "almost negotiated"; the United States would "prefer to conclude the treaty [...] under President Obama."

The two main points of contention between the USA and the EU are:

  • the most favored nation treatment and
  • the extent to which national leeway should be restricted (how far, for example, “local content requirements” that prescribe a certain proportion of domestic services should be prohibited - such as the USA, which defends its Jones Act from the 1920s which only allows US ships to trade between US ports).

For example, the EU is calling for this liberalization

  • from Colombia easier access to the television market,
  • from Israel an opening of the mail transport
  • from Japan free access to airport services.

Before the 20th TiSA negotiation round from Monday, September 19, 2016 (Geneva), Wikileaks published the current TiSA papers from June / July 2016 on September 15, 2016.

aims

The aim of the agreements is to enforce “more competition in services of all kinds” and to remove trade barriers in the “services” sector - accompanied by secrecy agreements already known and massively criticized by the Anti-Product Piracy Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP). A taz journalist characterizes the negotiation goals: "Public services for health, water and energy supply, in education , in the financial sector and in all other areas should be deregulated and exposed to international competition beyond the extent already achieved in the last 20 years." Accordingly, TiSA would exclude the readmission of privatized energy and water companies ( remunicipalisation ).

Company representatives from various service sectors ( Coalition of Services Industries ) named regulations and subsidies from state-owned companies as examples of market entry barriers . According to the negotiation plans from September 2014 z. B. the health sector is classified as a lucrative service sector. However, the contracting parties criticize the fact that there are regulatory and structural barriers to access, for example through health services from the state or welfare organizations.

With regard to the central goal of most favored nation treatment , the TiSA draft contract states: "Every state should not treat services and their providers worse than it treats its own services and their providers".

The agreement also provides for the opening of the labor market for foreign service providers. These should be entitled to send foreign contract workers to the individual signatory states for temporary assignments. It is questionable to what extent the labor law standards of the countries of assignment, in particular the collectively agreed salaries, must be maintained.

The draft text emphasizes that further points will be incorporated at any time. After the contract has been signed, new market opportunities for companies can be created - bypassing the democratic influence of the population.

Scope of TiSA
  • Legal services from lawyers, notaries, etc.
  • Technical services such as internet supply
  • Electronic transactions
  • Digital signatures
  • Accounting and auditing services
  • Tax advice
  • Architectural services
  • Urban planning services
  • Technical and scientific tests
  • Veterinary services
  • Educational services

Negotiating parties

Negotiating parties

TiSA is negotiated between Australia , Chile , Costa Rica , the EU , Hong Kong , Iceland , Israel , Japan , Canada , Colombia , Liechtenstein , Mauritius , Mexico , New Zealand , Norway , Pakistan , Panama , Peru , Switzerland , South Korea , Taiwan , the Turkey and the USA .

Proposals from NGOs

Europe

In addition to criticism and protests from civil society, a few of the NGOs also suggest how trade and international agreements that the EU negotiates and concludes should be structured - focused on the essentials, more flexible and democratic, with early involvement of those involved and more of transparency .

Foodwatch suggests " concluding trade deals only to dismantle tariffs (preferably at a global level), but outsource the rest to industry agreements and more flexible regulations".

In its paper “Demands for the Democratization of EU Trade Treaties” (April 2016), Mehr Demokratie stated that “proposals for how trade policy should work differently in the future are very rare” and brings their “demands into the discussion [...] how EU trade contracts can be democratized ", which the author divides into two areas - with and without changes to the EU treaties :

A. Improvements without changing the EU Treaties

  1. Negotiation texts from all sides are to be published
  2. The mandate must be published
  3. Comprehensive information from the European Parliament
  4. Equal participation of stakeholders
  5. No non-terminable contracts and no contracts with very long terms
  6. No provisional application

B. Improvements that make changes to the EU treaties necessary

  1. [EU] Parliament decides (together with the [EU] Council ) on the [negotiating] mandate
  2. [EU] Parliament can enforce renegotiations
  3. Direct democratic control of trade contracts is made possible

criticism

The service union Public Services International (PSI) warns against TiSA and sees it

“Fundamental potential for conflict between public services and agreements on trade in services. Public services are supposed to provide basic social services that are affordable, universally available and non-profit-making. Public services are generally accompanied by a set of rules that deliberately restrict their commercialization and ensure that basic services are not viewed as pure commodities. Trade agreements, on the other hand, specifically promote commercialization. "

Rosa Pavanelli , General Secretary of PSI, considers the comparatively low level of public attention to be a problem. This makes it easy for the negotiating partners to act in secret. TiSA would need the same attention as TTIP - or rather: both agreements need a lot more attention - in order to prevent the sell-out and commercialization of personal data, among other things.

“We now know that TiSA will continue to deregulate the financial sector, prevent the repatriation of failed privatizations and undermine data protection laws. What else are our governments keeping secret from us? "

According to Alliance Sud

“The US is committed to the total 'freedom' of services on the Internet. If this were to find its way into Tisa, it would henceforth be allowed to collect unlimited personal data and to transfer it across national borders. "

The EU parliamentarian Sven Giegold ( EFA / Die Grünen ) warns that the demand in the room, “every TiSA member should allow financial groups to freely transfer information from their area”, is an “attack on European data protection”. In addition, TiSA could mean that control of the financial markets is hardly possible.

According to Alexander Hagelüken of the SZ , the US wants to use TiSA to remove restrictions on "data" that is stored or processed in other countries. Furthermore, they hope that the agreement will increase their exports by 600 billion euros.

MEP Michel Reimon (EFA / The Greens) commented :

“With the agreement, the USA wants to open up the European service markets for US companies. The key is: The US government is trying to exempt companies from having to have a company headquarters in the countries in which they provide a service. US Internet companies would no longer need a branch in the European Union - and would therefore no longer be subject to EU legislation. In connection with the free trade agreement TTIP, European users and consumers would be completely subject to American law in this area. In this context, the US government is also demanding that US companies be allowed to transfer their data stocks to their home country without restrictions and legal regulations. The legal regulation of future platforms is to be made dependent on the consent of the TiSA contractual partners. And the second dangerous thrust is a direct attack on net neutrality, hidden behind the clause that 'reasonable network management' must be allowed. The US position thus coincides with the proposals made by the German Federal Government and the German 'Digital Commissioner' Oettinger , which gives them additional weight. "

MEP Julia Reda (EFA / Die Grünen) emphasized that these agreements primarily “serve to enforce the interests of transnational corporations” and also warned that the TiSA paper would attack net neutrality . Because in the commercial contract there is talk of "appropriate measures for network management", which is a "far too vague" formulation.

In a guest article for the Badische Zeitung in April 2015, the economist Wolfgang Kessler warns against the planned reversal from the principle of a positive list (all affected areas must be named) to that of a negative list (all areas that are not named are affected) as well as before various clauses planned in the contracts:

  • Future proofing ( future security ): all services that would not be on the negative list when the contract was signed should in future be open to private providers (on an international level);
  • Ratchet ( pawl ): once made privatization would be irreversible, a remunicipalisation z. B. would therefore become impossible;
  • Stand still ( standstill ): social, health or ecological standards and regulations would be "frozen": they should not be tightened after the conclusion of Tisa.

In addition, he also sees great dangers for data protection, because the countries concerned would have to grant foreign banks and insurance companies access to the domestic market according to Articles three and four, but the corresponding export of data would not be blocked.

Further agreements

Web links

Leaked documents

Institutional documents

items

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Süddeutsche Zeitung : Tisa is about much more than Ceta and TTIP September 16, 2016
  2. ↑ Website "plurilateral Agreement on Trade in Services (TISA)."
  3. ↑ Public hearing (online questionnaire): European Commission: Public Consultation on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Retrieved May 5, 2014 .
  4. ↑ US commercial agents announce the beginning of the deliberations in January 2013: Entering Negotiations for an International Services Trade Agreement ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ustr.gov
  5. ↑ Alexander Hagelüken: Silent Poker about Water and Account Data , Süddeutsche, June 20, 2014
  6. ^ Glyn Moody, TiSA Leak on Secret Negotiations, techdirt.com, accessed April 30, 2014.
  7. ↑ https://wikileaks.org/tisa-financial/WikiLeaks-secret-tisa-financial-annex.pdf
  8. ↑ Website "plurilateral Agreement on Trade in Services".
  9. ^ Trade in Services Agreement - September 15, 2016 Publication "
  10. ^ A b Andreas Zumach: Deregulation of services, secret negotiations in Geneva. In: taz.de. April 27, 2014, accessed April 6, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Ambassador Punke Updates Group on Trade in Services Agreement Negotiations ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - USTR press release of June 12, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ustr.gov
  12. ^ New leak in free trade agreement Tisa , Stern, February 4, 2015
  13. ^ "Trade in Services Agreement" , Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, accessed on July 1, 2016
  14. ↑ The end of TTIP and the nationalism trap , by Rico Grimm, Krautreporter , October 26, 2016 (direct source Foodwatch?)
  15. ↑ Demands for the democratization of EU trade agreements , by MIchael Efler, Mehr Demokratie , April 18, 2016, on background materials , mehr-demokratie.de
  16. ↑ http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/de_tisapaper_final_web.pdf
  17. ↑ Markus Beckedahl: Leak shows: TiSA trade agreement could undermine national data protection regulations , Netzpolitik.org, December 17, 2014
  18. ^ Isolda Agazzi (Alliance Sud): Danger to public service and privacy , guest commentary in the NZZ , July 22, 2014
  19. ↑ Sueddeutsche.de , June 19, 2014, Alexander Hagelüken, John Goetz: USA access account data of European citizens
  20. ↑ Alexander Hagelüken: Revelations on the Tisa trade agreement - attack on data protection , Sueddeutsche.de, December 17, 2014
  21. ↑ Reimon on TiSA-Leak: "US negotiators attack net neutrality and data security head-on" , APA-OTS on December 17, 2014
  22. ^ TiSA Agreement: Attack on Net Neutrality and Data Protection , derstandard.at, December 17, 2014
  23. ↑ Badische-zeitung.de , April 25, 2015: Poker about water and account data