Brussels, 08/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - Australia is to chair the 17th round of negotiations for a Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which is being held in Geneva from 10-15 April.
In an information note published on Thursday 7 April, the European Commission states that after completing most of the chapters in the agreement on domestic regulation and transparency during previous negotiating rounds, the negotiators' objective for this 17th round is to move forward on some of the key thematic annexes of the future agreement and to come closer to a stable text.
Their work will cover all annexes on digital issues (telecoms, e-commerce, and localisation), on the movement of people for supplying services - Mode 4 of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) - and financial services. The negotiators will also discuss transport services. In addition, their agenda also includes bilateral negotiations on market access in order to prepare for an exchange of revised offers by May.
The TiSA negotiations were launched in 2013 and there are 23 parties involved in them: Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the USA, and the EU.
The talks aim at circumventing the stalemate of the WTO Doha Round on the liberalisation of trade in services, and they cover all service sectors - including ICT, logistics and transport services, financial services and business services. However, the goal of the TiSA is also to develop new rules on the trade in services, like those which apply to public procurement in services, licensing procedures and access to communication networks.
On the EU side, the European Parliament submitted its requests for the TiSA at a vote in Strasbourg in early February. The Parliament would like the future agreements to ensure the opening of new markets for EU companies, but at the same time to protect consumers, public services and the right of governments to regulate (see EUROPE 11482). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)