Just Because The Art. 133 Committee Doesn't Legally Exist Doesn't Mean It's Not After Your Services

A history of the trade talks and recent EU treaties.

In 1995 the WTO^[1] was founded. It replaced the GATT^[2] so that Services and Intellectual Property as well as import and export taxes could be raised and judged on by the new WTO court system. An Irish guy, Peter Sutherland^[3] brokered the deal, and the public, democratic sphere lost any ability to control the trade in goods in countries that signed up. The Single European Act^[4] had given the EU competency to sign the 1995 deal and the bilateral deal^[5] between the US and EU forced the world into a new trade order.

However, in a European court case in 1994 (about bananas) it was found that the services sector could be too integral to the public sphere and so was outside the competencies of the EU. At the core of recent EU treaty negotiations, especially Nice and the Constitutional Convention, have been attempts to roll back on this get out - as the EU trade commission attempts to continue to negotiate trade deals without the nation states having any competency and without any parliamentary oversight.

In 1999 a movement in the US defined itself by protesting against and shutting down the WTO talks in Seattle - the loss of democratic control and legal sovereignty contained within the WTO trade negotiations were the most visible and important face of the changing landscape. But the EU court case was a block to further progress as the larger, more important areas of the developed knowledge economies were proving 'inefficient' and moving into the WTO process.

The Nice Treaty marked a shift in this approach as the national veto was lost in a range of services sectors (public transport, waste management, banking). This was the very veto that the EU Commission comforted us with, saying that the EU was a Social Democratic place protected against the ravages of free market globalisation because of this veto. It's unfortunate that the Trade Unions who were so vocal at the treaty negotiations in relation to the Charter of Rights dismissed concerns in these areas - given what their members in these areas are currently going through.

When an attempt was made to point this out during the ratification process we (The original Article 133 Open letter)^[6] were told that the Nice treaty posed no risk to the delivery of public services - Mary Harney courtesy of a cut and pasted WTO website quote and Bertie courtesy of a Dáil statement. The Nice Treaty was passed, on the second attempt and now services were under EU competency - with the exception, as kindly pointed out by Bertie in the Dail, of Health and Education and Cultural and Audio Visual services.

This didn't seem to be enough - or maybe the absence of legitimacy and transparency from the process finally started to catch up as the WTO negotiations in Cancun came crashing down last year and no deal was signed. So the services in the Nice treaty still have no deal and seem safe - for now.

Since the law making for Europe seemed to have built up a head of steam - mainly on the back of trade deals as the economic area gradually extended its influence - a constitution was decided - Let's set this thing up right once and for all. But in trade this meant the whole shebang - telly, hospitals, schools the lot. So the first draft of the constitution extends QMV^[7] into Health and Education and Cultural Services and makes sure the parliamentary position is ambiguous at best. But when the IGC^[8] breaks down last December in Italy and no constitution is agreed everything is up for negotiation again. Surprisingly Mary Harney expressed a preference for a Member State veto in Health and Education to go along with the stated position of a veto on tax policy. Then the European parliament decided, despite Proinsias De Rossa's best efforts to spin it otherwise, that the loss of the veto on cultural and audio visual services endangered the cultural and linguistic diversity of the union. So a clause on a veto to maintain linguistic diversity got added to the constitution, along with the veto in Health and Education that Mary Harney wanted. But only in the case of a 'risk to the delivery of public services' - exactly what Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern told us did not exist. So Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern, told us, during the Nice campaign and in the Dail respectively, that WTO trade deals can not damage public services … and now, the EU Constitution says that WTO trade deals could indeed damage public services!

For the constitution is the ultimate fudge - even the role of the institutions is left unclear in a document that weighs in at 8 times the size of our own beloved book. But unless the court judgements are kind and quick and the citizenry vigilant it is likely that this constitution could end up delivering the whole shebang.

How do Trade deals affect you

Last December I posted an article to Indymedia that discussed the 3 ages of the bin - including the future in the post-GATS utopia. There had just been a series of blockades in my neighbourhood - bin lorries held in cul de sacs by my neighbours. Other neighbourhoods had seen people go to prison for the same activity as non-collection was fought and held at bay in the city of Dublin.

There is a French company (SAUR) that has started to run water services in many African countries. To be facilitated to do this a deal was struck - allowing access to that market and preparing the market for privatization. The introduction of waste charges was the first step in privatising the bins here in Ireland - putting a price on the bins and getting people used to rubbish in the streets. Here's how a company gains access to that market.

Firstly there are the regulations - the WTO trade deals are designed to get rid of these - having to perform uneconomic tasks just because everybody has decided they are good ideas (food hygiene, workers rights, public health issues). In Ireland, the 2003 Environment Act removed the incovenient legal requirement that all bins becollected : deregulation is enforced through GATS if not done before. Get rid of the regulations and then create a level playing field - where even if a company needs a subsidy from our taxes because we want pensioners to travel free on buses you can't give preferential treatment to an Irish company over a (foreign) competitor. The way you do this is through trade regulations - which are subject to the highest court in the World - the WTO Court - which no popular vote can ever impact.

In April 2003 Pascal Lamy, the EU Trade Commissioner, announced a series of offers and concessions on trade that the EU had received and made. These included the offer to liberalise waste management. Some company had probably made representations at a lobby meeting. A country or an EU body had presented this proposal to the Article 133 Committee (the Brussels based committee that do the trade deals on our behalf, the group that the WWF have discovered have actually no legal basis to exist). They didn't tell anybody - except the EU Commission. The unelected commissioners then decide whether to include this specific detail in a briefing to the Council of Ministers at mandate request meetings. But the ministers can't pass on any information to others and they have to decide on whether they want to argue for public bin services.

This is why the veto is important. When QMV is in that area, any minister can say he was opposed to the measure but lost on the QMV so, sorry. When there is a veto you know every minister had to say yes. This is important because these are the only democratically elected people in the whole process - and they know they are not accountable under secret QMV.

Because the EU parliament is irrelevant - in the new proposed constitution there is the possibility that parliamentary approval could be required but the Article 133 committee has refused to tell the parliament what it is discussing. It just gets ready to negotiate, cuts deals and then - years later - the trade unions are seeking letters of redress for the workers left in the public rump of the service as it is prepared for sale.

Because after the move into a market economy, after the removal of democratic oversight ... then the vultures come swooping in and asset strip.

Telecom is gone and Aer Lingus is on the way. Half of waste and some of electricity has gone and the airports are on the way. Trade deals matter because we keep losing battles and can't decide on how our society is structured because they are just soooo boring. Smart tactics by those mad trade dudes.