Brussels, 25/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Under fire from the European Parliament and the general public over its lack of transparency in trade negotiations, the Commission published the EU's position in the negotiations for an international agreement on services (TiSA) on Thursday 24 July.
The TiSA talks are based on the texts presented by the participant countries, and the texts submitted by the EU are first agreed with the governments of the EU's member states, the Commission explains in a press release. “As part of our ongoing efforts to make the EU's position in the TiSA talks as transparent as possible, we have made public those EU contributions to the negotiations the publication of which at this stage does not undermine the EU's negotiating position”, it continues.
These papers include a concept paper outlining the EU's ideas on how the TiSA agreement should be structured, on how to keep the TiSA agreement open to other countries, and how to make the TiSA agreement an element of the general rules of the WTO.
There are also two proposals for rules (or “disciplines” in the technical jargon) to be used as a basis for the TiSA negotiations. There is an EU proposal for a core text and for scheduling provisions and one for an annex on financial services, which combines two existing WTO agreements: the annex on financial services of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services, which is part of the same agreement.
Lastly, it contains the EU's opening bid (list of market access and national treatment) to allow businesses from other countries which are stakeholders to the TiSA to provide services in the EU. This document lists the types of services to be offered by foreign companies and the conditions to be observed. “It is based on what the EU has offered to other countries in bilateral agreements, without going beyond what has been offered them. Like all participants in the talks, the EU has the right to change its offer. This will depend on how much other participants are prepared to allow EU firms to provide services in their countries”, the Commission explains.
The documents are available on the information website of DG Trade, at the following address: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1133 .
The new chair of the international trade committee of the European Parliament, Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany), welcomed this effort at transparency. “This unprecedented initiative is the right reaction to the calls of the European Parliament for more transparency in trade negotiations and the concerns of the public over the secrecy surrounding these negotiations” , he said (our translation). In a resolution dated 4 July 2013, the European Parliament, which will be called upon to ratify the TiSA once the talks are concluded, asked the Commission to ensure that the TiSA negotiations are carried out in line with WTO rules on transparency.
The TiSA talks, which have involved 50 WTO countries representing the global trade in services - Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israël, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taïwan, Turkey, the United States and the 28 member states of the EU since 2013 - aim to break the deadlock in the Doha Round on the liberalisation of the trade in services. They cover all services sectors, including ICT, logistics and transport services, financial services and business-to-business services. The scope of the TiSA aims to go beyond the opening-up of the services market: it will also develop new rules on the trade in services, such as those which apply to public procurement, procedures for granting licences and access to the communication networks. (EH)