Brussels, 04/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The opinion of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which was compiled by Helmuth Markov (PES, German) and adopted in the CoR plenary session on Friday 4 December, calls for more transparency, better protection of their right to regulate public services, and the preservation of the EU's social protection standards.
Overall, the CoR supports the TiSA negotiation - which is of “the utmost importance” given the service sector's essential role in the European economy (the sector accounts for 68% of manpower in the EU, and its exports support 10 million jobs in Europe).
The opinion compiled by Markov nevertheless holds that a legitimate result of the TiSA negotiations can only be achieved if all stakeholders are involved.
As the local and regional authorities regulate and supply services themselves, they have a “significant responsibility” in this negotiation. In addition, given that the final agreement will have to be ratified by the representative assemblies at the regional level in a number of member states, the CoR asks to be involved in the decision-making process during, and at the end of, the negotiations.
The CoR also underlines the need for social protection standards on the basis of the conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and it calls for the inclusion of a clause that would allow the liberalisation of a service to be reversed at any time. “We cannot support an agreement that foresees the degree of liberalisation, automatically liberalises new services or prohibits services being returned to the public sector where it is in the public interest”, Markov's opinion states. It also calls for the implementation of higher standards not to be prohibited.
In addition, the CoR calls for the TisA negotiations not to cover the privatisation of public services and insists that the right of local, regional, national and European authorities to regulate in the public interest should be fully recognised in the negotiation text.
The CoR also calls for a positive list of sectors to be included, rather than a negative list of the sectors to be ruled out from the scope of liberalisation provided for by the agreement.
Furthermore, the CoR underlines that the TiSA must not encroach upon the sovereignty of national governments and local and regional authorities in areas such as education and culture, or labour and environmental protection.
The 15th round of plurilateral negotiations for the TiSA was held in Geneva this week (see EUROPE 11442). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)