Brussels, 06/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - Following a leak on a document presented by Turkey on health services as part of the negotiations for an international trade in services agreement (TiSA), the European Commission reaffirmed its commitment on Thursday 5 February to protecting public services as part of the trade agreements negotiated by the EU with third countries.
“The fact that other participants of TiSA make submissions on specific issues does not mean that these are automatically up for discussion or consideration by the EU”, the Commission states in a press release. “The EU has never made commitments regarding publicly-funded health services or insurance portability in any of its FTAs [free trade agreements] and does not intend to do so in the future, be it in TiSA, TTIP or any other trade agreement”, the Commission adds. It also states that in its trade agreements, “the EU always underlines its commitment to protecting public services at all levels of government, including the local level”. “Any decision to deregulate, privatise or bring to the public sphere such services is entirely up to national governments and local authorities. The EU's trade agreements will not change that. TiSA will not change that. Nor will TiSA require EU governments or public health services to put anything out to private contract”, the Commission adds.
“I want to stress in unequivocal terms that under no circumstances would I ever propose a trade agreement that contained provisions on portability of health insurance. I do not consider this to be a trade issue and the Commission will not compromise the high level of quality of our public health services in a trade agreement”, underlined European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström. (EH)