Irish Referendum on the Nice Treaty

by dataflow Tue Oct 15, 2002 13:17

The attached document expresses their true concerns. If they feel there was no impact from Nice, why did they contact Pascal Lamy (trade commissioner) with this statement.

selections

>All parties to the current GATS negotiations should make it absolutely clear that public services (above all, education, health and essential public utilities) including at sub-national levels of government, and socially beneficial service sector activities are not a subject for negotiation.

>WTO agreements should not undermine the ability of governments to enact domestic regulations, legislation and other measures to safeguard the public interest. However, under present WTO rules, such measures could be subject to challenge at the WTO if they are perceived as constituting a form of trade discrimination.

>Countries must not be obliged to privatise public services against their will.

If none of this can happen, why did the ETUC feel it necessary to issue this statment in May of this year (after the Nice negotiations and the leaked plans to privatise water).

by pat c Tue Oct 15, 2002 13:35

good posting cde.

anyone know of an attac meeting on in dublin tonight?

by pat c Tue Oct 15, 2002 13:57

i neglected to add this covering note from ictu.
perhaps people would like to make disagreements re "lies" known to the address below.

Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 3:21 PM
Subject: NICE REFERENDUM - BEGG REJECTS MISLEADING STATEMETNS ABOUT PRIVATISATION

Dear Editors,

Please find attached statement from DAVID BEGG, General Secretary, rejecting lies about the impact of the Nice Treaty on public services.

Oliver Donohoe

**Oliver Donohoe, Research and Information Officer,
Irish Congress of Trade Unions,
32 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.
Phone +353 1 8897777 Mobile 087 2573799

http://www.ictu.ie **

Embargo: 5pm, Friday,11th October, 2002.

BEGG REJECTS MISLEADING STATEMENTS ABOUT PRIVATISATION AND NICE TREATY

‘NO’ CAMPAIGN IS DISTORTING THE TRUTH

Summary of address by David Begg, General Secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions at SIPTU Regional Conference in Jury’s Hotel, Dublin on Friday 11th October.

“Those who describe themselves as ‘trade unionists against Nice’ are wrong and scare mongering when they say that the Nice Treaty will lead to privatisation of public services. They are deliberately misleading fellow trade unionists when they claim that ‘Nice is in effect a framework for a massive privatisation programme.’

Article 133 of the Treaty, to which they refer, would permit qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers on international trade agreements covering services and intellectual property rights. Its adoption would simply bring the Council’s decision-making procedures on services into line with those which already apply to international trade agreements in goods, and with the decision-making procedures on services which already apply within the internal EU market.

As a small, open economy massively dependent on trade, it is clearly in our interest that a stable well-regulated world trade regime in services is put in place through the World Trade Organisation. The establishment of such a regime will be facilitated by a move to qualified majority voting in the Council of
Contd …page 2…
Page 2.
Ministers. The present unanimity requirement has enabled a number of large states to block progress in the past. This has not
been in our interest given our increasing national involvement in international trade in services. We should, therefore, welcome a move to qualified majority voting so far as trade in commercial services is concerned.

So far as public services are concerned, international agreements dealing with trade in cultural and audio-visual services, educational services and social and human health services will continue to be subject to the unanimous agreement of the Member States. Refusing to acknowledge this important fact is another example of the deliberate distortion of the truth, which characterises the NO campaign.

They didn’t mention either that the World Trade Organisation’s “General Agreement on Trade in Services”, within which these matters are negotiated, provides that all WTO members can legitimately regulate economic and non-economic sectors within their territory to guarantee the attainment of public service objectives. All WTO member states are free to establish specific rules for the organisation of sectors identified as public service sectors. Specifically, EU member states cannot be prevented by WTO negotiated agreements in services from safeguarding the quality of their public services in line with their own preferences and traditions.

It is clear therefore that, whatever developments may occur in Irish public services in the future, these will not be as a result of the Nice Treaty. The NO campaigners should stop scare mongering and deal with the facts. But they won’t, because the facts expose the poverty of their arguments.”

by dataflow Tue Oct 15, 2002 14:18

ICTU has got the PD's writing their press releases now - this is the same falsehood that was peddled by Mary Harney a week ago. Here's the response the article 133 group dug up then:

While there have not been any WTO panel rulings yet on a GATS challenge to a public service, there have been cases in international trade law that give an indication of what the results of such a challenge are likely to be. A similar exemption for governmental services in the European Treaty has never once succeeded in protecting a service in any of the cases brought to date.

The notion suggested in "WTO - Fact and Fiction" that European Community representatives will rush to the defence of public services in the context of the GATS negotiations is not born out by the EC's record. In fact, at a meeting to review expansion of the European Community, European trade officials emphatically reassured other WTO members that an exemption for governmental services in the European Treaty similar to one in the GATS in practice had in reality offered no protection at all.

In the minutes from a WTO meeting held in May 1999 EC officials were asked to explain the extent of trade in services provided for under the new agreements the European Community was signing withcountries in eastern Europe. They were asked in particular about a particular clause in the European Treaty - Article 55 - that gives an exemption for services connected to 'the exercise of official authority'.

The EC responded by saying: 'These provisions [of Article 55] are similar with those of Article 1.3.(b) of GATS which excludes from its scope services 'supplied in the exercise of governmental authority.'...There are no examples in the European Court of Justice jurisprudence where the Court found that an activity would fall under the scope of Article 55.'

Far from being the champion of public services, the EC has actually taken its own member states to court in a number of cases when these members have tried to exempt services from trade obligations under the European Treaty. For example, the EC challenged Italy's public monopoly on job placement centres. Even though this was a pure public monopoly with no private sector competition, even though it operated on a completely non-profit basis, and even though Italy maintained the monopoly was a matter of public policy, the European Court of Justice agreed in 1997 with the EC and ruled Italy's program was a violation because it was "liable to affect trade."

In another case involving Spain, the EC argued in court that the official authority exemption "should be interpreted restrictively and limited to what is strictly necessary" and that "Member states cannot put a ring fence around an entire sector of activities."

European Court of Justice arguments are frequently referred to in WTO disputes. The eagerness of the EC within the European context to see exemptions for governmental authority strictly limited undermines the notion that the EC can be relied on to be a defender of public services at the WTO.

by ETUC shithead Fri Oct 18, 2002 00:32

ETUC are an elite who mis represent workers. What have they done for exploited agency workers, this type of insecure work is mushrooming throughout the EU empire. Have they lowered the working week to 30 hours? Have they managed to win an increase in corporation Tax in order to ensure corporations pay a fairer share rather than what they are allowed to get away with now. Reinstate Mick O Reilly now and keep the sellout Des Geraghty's and ICTU and ETUC, they are scum who constantly let workers down and betray them in their class collaboration.