How TiSA strolls off with our services
Lavinia Steinfort
TiSA, the Trade in Services Agreement, moved into the twelfth round of negotiations.
It is by far the most extensive agreement of the treaty collective,
including CETA, TTP and TTIP. Fifty, mainly high income countries took
part in the secret talks, which were held in Genève from July sixth
until July tenth. Also present were the US and the EU, the latter
negotiated on behalf of 28 of its member states. Together, these
countries are worth two thirds of the global GDP, and more than two
thirds of the global trade in services.
How to protect trade secrets
The TiSA negotiations, which have been under way since 2012, took
place behind closed doors. Whether these talks will lead to a service
agreement or not, the TiSA papers containing the stances of our
governments will not be released until five years after the negotiations, this according to Wikileaks. The whistle blowers organisation recently published seventeen classified documentsoffering
us a look into the scope of the agreement. The documents reveal the
plans that are currently under construction for airline, telecom and
financial services. Equally, news website the New Republic reported that
TiSA might enable banks to exchange data from EU-customers with
companies in other TiSA-countries, such as the US, where privacy
regulations are less strict.
Research done by Public Services International (PSI) shows that TiSA’s original textexcludes
only those services that are performed under government authority. This
means that these services are non-commercial, and that they do not
compete with other providers of services. In practice, however, public
amenities such as health care, social services, education, postal, waste
and water services are often financed through a mixed system that is
wholly or partially funded, and tightly regulated, by governments. As a
consequence of this, semipublic services do not fall under TiSA’s narrow
definition, and henceforth could be privatized at the drop of a hat.
This could come at the expense of public access to education, healthcare
or water services, which are in fact human rights.
