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GATS

Corporate power over EU trade policy: good for business, bad for the world

Have corporate interests hijacked the EU agenda on trade at the WTO?

Authors: M. Vander Stichele; K. Bizzarri; L. Plank
Publisher: Seattle to Brussels Network, 2006

Full text of document

A strategy of aggressive lobbying, this paper claims, is affording transnational corporations undue influence over the European Union’s trade agenda. Drawing from the EU’s own Sustainability Impact Assessments, case studies and other sources, this report illustrates how the European Commission’s position in WTO trade negotiations promotes the interests of big business over social and environmental goals in five areas:

  • agriculture
  • General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) and the liberalisation of retail services
  • GATS and the liberalisation of financial services
  • Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and the chemical sector
  • NAMA negotiations in the forestry sector
Problems highlighted by the report include the lack of transparency regarding lobbyists and the interests they promote, and the lack of consultation with governments and the public.

The report calls on the European Commission to fundamentally change its trade policies in order for them to be just, sustainable and democratically accountable. The premise that trade policy is a means of enhancing other policy goals. Recommendations centre around the need for:

  • increased transparency. The EC should ensure that the European Transparency Initiative requires obligatory, rather than voluntary, registration and reporting by all EU lobbyists about sources of income and the interests represented
  • enhanced consultation and democratic participation in EU trade policy-making by all stakeholders concerned
  • promoting social and environmental goals, recognising that trade policy is a means of enhancing other policy goals