Brussels, 14/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The EU is chairing the 12th session of negotiations in Geneva this week (13-17 April) for an international trade in services agreement (TiSA).
Discussions will cover financial services, telecommunications, shipping transport, domestic regulation, and the movement of natural persons as services suppliers (mode 4). The negotiators are also expected to assess the progress made thus far, including a discussion on market access offers. Currently; all the stakeholders have tabled their opening bids, with the exception of Pakistan, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Taking the chair in this round of negotiations, the EU wants to begin preparations for a stocktaking exercise planned for July. The objective is to define the perimeter of the agreement and identify the key stumbling blocks in each sector under discussion.
Since March 2013, over 50 WTO countries - Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Uruguay, the US and the 28 member states of the EU - have been involved in this negotiation, which aims at circumventing the stalemate of the Doha round on the liberalisation of trade in services. These countries together account for over 70% of world trade in services. China and Mauritius have requested to joint the negotiations in the near future.
The TiSA negotiations cover all services sectors including ICT, logistics and transport services, financial services and business services. However, the aim of the future agreement is to go beyond just opening up services markets. It is also to develop new rules on trade in services, like those that apply to government procurement for services, licensing and access to communication networks.
In a press release, the European Commission nevertheless states that the EU does not want the TiSA to include publicly funded health services or health insurance. “The EU will not compromise the high quality of its public health services in a trade agreement”, the Commission underlines. (Emmanuel Hagry)