Brussels, 02/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday the European Commission sent the WTO a revised an improved offer from the EU on services in the Doha round. On Thursday Commission sources explained that the offer (prepared in consultation with Member States and the EP) is conditional. It could be withdrawn entirely or partially if WTO partners are not prepared to make “substantial and sufficient offers” themselves. In April 2003, the EU had already made an initial offer but the WTO launched an appeal to all members to send their initial offers and improved proposals for June in order to relaunch negotiations, which at this stage, are not moving forward at all. The Commission underlined that some of the offers which are currently on the table (only about 50 from 148 member countries) “are not very high quality offers and which do not allow for a real increase in opportunities on third country markets”, especially those from the USA and China. The US has just submitted a revised offer to Geneva this week but Commission services are not able to judge whether this constitutes a real advance on the initial US offer, which Brussels judged disappointing and insufficient. China also made an initial offer that was “not very substantial”, affirms the Commission, which does not know, however, if Peking intends to revise it or not. The EU, very competitive in services, is pushing hard for the USA, China and others to open up their markets. The Commission sources underlined that “a balance between the different pillars of the Doha negotiations is needed. It is obvious that services are an essential pillar for the Union. We will have to have satisfactory results in services if a balanced result at the end of the negotiations is to be obtained”. Negotiations on services will start up again in two weeks in Geneva. Up till then, all revised offers (if there are more of them) will have to be submitted.
Improvements made by the EU to its initial offer “particularly take into account interests and requests of developing countries”¸ asserted the Commission. On of the main improvements is the fact that wince the initial offer made in April 2003, the EU has enlarged with ten new Member States (and their 80 million consumers) and that all the offers now cover 25 Member States and not just the 15 older ones. There are also a number of specific improvements in certain areas such as: Professional services. Developing countries have a particular interest in services that require the change of location of the natural person from their country of origin to a third country providing the service. In this domain, the initial offer of the EU was already “very innovative”, according to the Commission, which says that this already substantially increased the opportunities which were on offer by third countries at that point. Therefore, in around twenty sectors (computer experts, legal services, translation services, accountancy, architects, engineers etc.), the initial offer from the EU allows service providers from third countries to benefit from longer stays (six months instead of three months) in the EU, not matter whether the independent service providers or services employed by a third country firm have come to the EU to provide a service on the basis of an existing contract. In the revised offer, the EU has again extended the field of application of its initial offer and now includes independent legal experts; environmental services. Further to what was proposed in its initial offer, the EU is also prepared to open up its market to environmental consultants and those carrying out environmental impact studies in “a domain where developing countries have an interest”; business services. The EU is proposing to reduce obstacles to market access even further, as well as restrictions linked to national treatment (nationality, place of residency etc.) in sectors such as packing, printing and research and development in social sciences; construction sector. The EU is also proposing to improve market access and reduce barriers linked to national treatment applying to construction service providers from third countries -operating in the EU.
As was already the case in the initial offer, the revised EU offer does not contain any commitments to opening up the audiovisual services, education or health care. In these three public service sectors, the EU is not demanding that third countries open up their markets either.
The complete EU offer on services is available at the DG Trade siteweb: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/trade/index_en.htm.