Report on the "Etats généraux" - Estates General - of Local Governments against the GATS

The Etats généraux - Estates General - of local governments against the GATS [General Agreement on Trade in Services, one of the many trade agreement managed by the World Trade Organisation-WTO] took place on 13-14 November 2004. This meeting, whose title harks back to the first step in what was to become the French Revolution, represented a genuine first for the alter-globalisation movement as we call it in France, bringing together elected officials of city, departmental and regional councils with social activists to plan strategy and mount a common campaign.

The fight against GATS has been a major campaign for ATTAC over the past two and a half years so the Etats généraux represented both the culmination of a great deal of work and a new departure from a higher level. We see the GATS as a way to transfer huge new markets, in areas never before considered "markets" at all, to transnational corporations [which indeed helped to write the GATS text in the 1980s]. Manufacturing and agriculture are covered by other WTO agreements; virtually all other human activities fall under the GATS except for national defence, the police, the courts and religion. It's also a way to outlaw subsidies to public services, make public service employees redundant and pry open government procurement.

We recognised early on that there was no way we could influence the WTO directly. Even when negotiations were stopped as in Seattle, they always started again. Nor could we hope to put much pressure on the European Commission which negotiates for all 25 EU member countries. Given this democratic deficit, there was only one choice remaining: try to get France to demand a new mandate for the European Trade Commissioner and a moratorium on the negotiations. We want the removal ofhealth and social services, education, culture and the environment, including water, from the GATS, plus the right for every country to declare the services that it considered non-negotiable public services on its territory, so that transport, energy, or communications can also be removed where required.

How best to get France, with its neo-liberal government, to change its stance inside the EU? The best option seemed to create a groundswell of local government opposition to the GATS and thereby oblige the government to take notice, as it would never do if only the social movements made up of ordinary citizens were concerned.

So we launched the campaign called "100 local governments against GATS" thanks to the 220-some local Attac Committees. Very quickly, their work with local councils took us beyond the 100 mark so we renamed the campaign "500 local governments... " and now we have topped 600. Most have left majorities, but not all of them. These regions, departments, cities and villages represent nearly 40 million French people and have voted resolutions proclaiming themselves "GATS-Free Zones" and called for a moratorium on negotiations.

So the Estates General are building on solid ground. Over the weekend, we came to several decisions, most important among them to continue working together. The steering committee, made up of elected officials from different parties, will continue. We all recognise the need to use all possible avenues to inform citizens. Towns will put up "GATS-Free Zone" signs on the entry roads and explain the GATS in their municipal bulletins. "Twinned" communities will ask their sister cities and regions outside France to join the movement. A letter stating our demands was approved and will be delivered to President Chirac and Prime Minister Raffarin. And of course we hope soon to be 1000... perhaps more GATS-Free local governments.

Austria and Belgium already have similar campaigns that are well advanced; Italy and Spain have had some encouraging results. We hear that there is similar work going on in the UK but haven't managed to establish contact with GATS-Free communities there. Germany, the largest EU State, is the great black hole. We will try to bring everyone together and hold Europe-wide Estates general next year.
Stay tuned.