Today,
Wednesday, 25 May 2016, 11:30am CEST, WikiLeaks releases new secret
documents from the huge Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) which is
being negotiated by the US, EU and 22 other countries that account
for 2/3rds of global GDP.
This release
includes a previously unknown annex to the TiSA core chapter on
"State Owned Enterprises" (SOEs), which imposes
unprecedented restrictions on SOEs and will force majority owned SOEs
to operate like private sector businesses. This corporatisation of
public services - to nearly the same extent as demanded by the
recently signed TPP - is a next step to privatisation of SOEs on the
neoliberal agenda behind the "Big Three" (TTIP,TiSA,TPP).
Other
documents in todays release cover updated versions of annexes to TiSA
core chapters that were published by WikiLeaks in previous releases;
these updates show the advances in the confidential negotiations
between the TiSA parties on the issues of Domestic Regulation, New
Provisions, Transparency, Electronic Commerce, Financial Services,
Telecommunication Services, Professional Services and the Movement of
Natural Persons. WikiLeaks is also publishing expert analyses on some
of these documents.
The annexes
on Domestic Regulation, Transparency and New Provisions have further
advanced towards the "deregulation" objectives of big
corporations entering overseas markets. Local regulations like store
size restrictions or hours of operations are considered an obstacle
to achieve "operating efficiencies" of large-scale
retailing, disregarding their public benefit that foster livable
neighbors and reasonable hours of work for employees. The TiSA
provisions in their current form will establish a wide range of new
grounds for domestic regulations to be challenged by corporations -
even those without a local presence in that country.
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