Economic and Social Security Cluster, 8 Sept. 2004 Asia-Europe People's Forum.

Economic and Social Security Cluster, 8 Sept. 2004 Asia-Europe People's Forum.

GATS CHALLENGES TO NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND PEOPLE'S SECURITY

Background
The European Union's trade policy serves the interests of European big business. It is proposing to create a multilateral trade and legal infrastructure that gives rights to corporations and disciplines nation-states. The European Union through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has embarked on a strategy to remove all barriers to trade in services or entry into the service industry within a country. The GATS is about protecting foreign investors' right.

The GATS will strike at the heart of existing economic development strategies of developing countries, where the regulatory framework is a key feature. The GATS rules will tend to dismantle the important regulatory role of the state and organize the provision of services including essential services around the rules of the global market place.

The implications of accepting the GATS commitment could be detrimental for developing nations. The provisioning and access to essential services such as - water, health care, education and electricity- will take place through the market. This has implications for the continued universal accessibility of these services for all citizens especially, the vulnerable groups in society.

Poverty reduction strategy and wealth distribution strategies might be undermined. Furthermore, it would mean that the role of the government in the affairs of the state - regulatory or management of the economy - will be weakened, and the ability to control foreign investors will be eliminated. Existing state regulations on foreign equity ownership will have to be removed.

Essential services are already coming under the control of the private sector as a result of privatization and structural adjustment policies. New GATS commitment would give corporations further access and could make existing privatizations' effectively irreversible. The aggressive EU GATS posturing in the new round is highly strategic. With the regulatory state out of the way, direct co direct control of national based corporations can be exercised through GATS oversights and disciplines supported by WTO judicial and enforcement powers. The GATS, should then be perceived as a international legal instrument of neo-colonial control.

The role of government in the development process, and in fact, its ability to govern could be undermined. Embracing GATS would involve an overhaul of domestic laws and regulations. In fact, GATS will make possible the development agenda of states to be determined by multinational corporations, a phenomenon that has implications for democratic governance of nation states. There is a real fear that public control over the economy, society, and the environment will be removed. Put differently, multilateral trade rules are being used to determine domestic policy and the state's ability to manage the economy is dismantled in the processes.

Objectives
The workshop focuses on the impact of the GATS on national sovereignty of nations and peoples' security in both Asia and Europe. Specifically, it will focus on how multinational corporations using the GATS agreement are undermining the developmental role of the state, pushing for the provisioning of essential services through the market and privatization; subordinating the state to meet the demands of capital and in the process manufacturing human insecurity.

Suggested topics

1. What is at stake for East Asian and European countries in the GATS talks (EU requests, EU services TNCs, etc.)
2. Civil society campaigns in East Asia and Europe against GATS and related liberalisation and privatisation threats as well as possible joint international actions

Presenters

Lutfiyah Hanim (Institute for Global Justice, Indonesia)

Peter Hardstaff (World Development Movement, UK)

Commentator

Roeline Knottnerus(GATS Platform, the Netherlands)

Moderator

Charles Santiago (MSN, Malaysia)