After in autumn of last year the Commission had presented the new trade and investment strategy of the EU, this week a working document on a new forward-looking and innovative future strategy on trade and investment was debated in the Trade Committee of the European Parliament. Also once again discussed were TiSA und TTIP; apart from that a new study “Comparison of the EU service offers for the TTIP and TiSA negotiations” by “CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research“ was presented.

The trading strategies of the European Commission, to which perspectives and demands had been added, were assessed in 16 sections of the working document of the European Parliament. The members of the Committee evaluated the paper itself as being definitely positive; it was commented on and criticised by contributions (in particular of the left wing).

Core points of the working document are among other the trade policy protection system and the political accompanying measures to support the liberalisation agenda of the Commission (whereby the liberalisation itself is not called into question), China's market economy status, industrial policy and transparency.

With regard to a sustainability chapter, INTA is coming out in favour of a binding chapter on employees’ rights. In addition, provisions in respect of human rights, social standards and environmental standards as well as corporate social responsibility have to be a main component of EU trade agreements.

The importance of integrating services into trade agreements is pointed out as it would bring significant opportunities for European companies and their employees, whereby the right to regulate public services has to remain.

From the point of view of the AK, public services must be comprehensively and unambiguously exempt from the entire scope of trade and investment agreements. The scope of democratic decision-making bodies to shape policies in the sector of services and national regulations must not be put at risk. Priority rules for high standards with regard to collective agreements, labour law, environmental and consumer protection as well as public services have to be retained, enforced and enhanced.

Another point of the working paper concerns already existing agreements. These should be reviewed regularly. Hence, the Committee requests from the Commission an annual report on the actual implementation of its trading strategy. In addition, multilateral should be given preference.

INTA has no opinion, but a piece of advice to offer with regard to replacing ISDS with ICS for example in the case of TTIP. The Commission should take into account the discussions of capital and civil societies.

The discussion itself had few surprises in store, whilst the EPP urges the reduction of trade barriers, MEPs of the S&D fraction point towards the significance of employees’ rights and also think that there is a lot of catching up to do regarding the gender perspective.

Afterwards, a new study on the subject to “Comparison of the EU service offers for the TTIP and TiSA negotiations” by “CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research” was presented. The author compared both agreements, listed differences as well as similarities and came to the result that TiSA would have a more liberalising effect on the service sector than TTIP. He explained his finding by saying that in the case of TiSA, due to a higher expectation of competitive advantages, there would be a greater willingness to accept liberalisation. In contrast, the expectations of competitive advantages with regard to TTIP were much lower, probably because there was only one negation partner, the USA.

Further Information:

EU Parliament sends warning signals to ongoing TiSA negotiation round

TiSA Report leaves too many loopholes

AK Position Paper: Trade for all – Towards a more responsible trade and investment policy

AK Position Paper: TTIP negotiations: EU proposal for a “Title on services, investments and e-commerce” and the related revised EU offer

AK Position Paper: Current negotiations on the plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)

AK Position Paper: TTIP and CETA

Published texts by the European Commission on TiSA

Published texts by the European Commission on TTIP

European Commission: Trade for All - New EU Trade and Investment Strategy

Documentation of the Seminar “Challenging the liberalisation of public services in TTIP and beyond”, organised by von AK, ÖGB, EPSU and ETUC

Study “TiSA contra Public Services“ by Public Services International (PSI)

Study Public Services under Attack

Study “Public Services in Bilateral Free Trade Agreements of the EU”