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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
Complaints against oil companies
Violation of OECD guidelines?
EU offer for GATS negotiations
Interview with Wolfgang Preiser:
SARS: a new epidemic of the poor?
Multilateral Agreement on Investment:
the WTO is the wrong place for negotiations
Clare Short resigns
The Utstein Group
Civil society:
promoted by the state or a countervailing power?
Wieczorek-Zeul praises development in Benin
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[ EU offer for GATS negotiations ]
Belatedly, the European Union at the end of April submitted its offer for the negotiations on a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to the offer, important sectors such as education, drinking water supply, healthcare and culture should remain exempt from liberalisation. However, the opening of the markets for energy, postal services, civil aviation and shipping already undertaken by individual EU countries should be incorporated in the GATS agreement and thus codified under international law. Critics of the GATS negotiations complain that the liberalisation in these sectors would then be irrevocable. Moreover, they fear that the EU will later put the exempted sectors up for negotiation after all. (uke)
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