TTIP: the boring-sounding trade deal that threatens our public services

Linda Kaucher is from Stop TTIP UK. Here she explains how the trade deal could affect our democracy and our future.

You might assume that the decision to privatise a public service or bring it into public ownership is a UK decision. However a new trade deal would mean decisions like these would be very much affected by the EU and the EU’s international deals with other countries.

A bill of rights for corporations

The EU and the United States are currently negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This would be one of the largest trade deals to be agreed, although TTIP is less about ‘trade’ and more like a bill of rights for corporations. A key aim of TTIP is for corporations to have a right to access government spending at all levels of government, including spending on public services. These rights would be then tied into international trade law.

TTIP and public services

There are three chapters of the TTIP agreement that will affect public services:

• Public procurement (all government spending on goods and services).

• Services (which will include public and commercial services).

• State owned enterprises (that allow governments to take part in commercial activities).

The TTIP aim is for all these to be opened up to transnational investors, effectively permanently, but our vital public services should be owned by and accountable to us, not used for the benefit corporate investors.

Allowing corporations to sue our governments

The Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) part of TTIP would mean that a government could be sued for any changes that inhibit a corporation's future profits. This would make it very difficult and costly to the public purse, to bring privatised services back into public ownership. This provision will effectively mean corporations having a greater say than citizens or governments over how our services are run, prioritising profit-making. Corporate power would trump democratic decision-making.

Following a massive public rejection of ISDS in response to an EU Commission consultation on this provision in TTIP, negotiations on the ISDS component are currently suspended, but it is has not been dropped from the agreement.

What we know about public procurement demands - from leaks

The TTIP negotiations are held behind closed doors and the key documents about what is going on are being kept secret. The limited information that is in the public sphere is from leaks and from the sparse information that the EU publishes.

We know that, because of lobbying by corporations, a major demand that the EU is making in this deal, is rights for transnational corporations to access US public procurement at the US state level. While US federal procurement is liberalised overall, many US states tend to keep their spending within state, thus keeping jobs within the state. But the big corporations want to be able to bid for US state procurement investment opportunities.

Our public services are not safe

There is widespread resistance to TTIP across the EU, much to the surprise of those promoting it, because trade deals have hitherto escaped public attention.

The high level of public concern about public services in relation to TTIP, especially in the UK and particularly focussed on the NHS has produced a string of legally complex assurances from the EU and from the UK government about why public services will not be negatively affected by TTIP.

But public services, as most people would understand them are not defined in TTIP. Such definitions as exist are very narrow, for instance services defined as having no commercial element. There are very few public services that would be covered by that narrow protection.

The assurances about protection have failed to convince and a major call from the public, including NHS concern groups, doctors and nurses associations, and public service and other unions, is for an exemption of the NHS and other public services from TTIP. And it's not just about the NHS. 100 activists and campaigners from all walks of life took the #noTTIP train to Brussels on the 3 February 2015 to make their point there.

Broader concerns about TTIP

There are many dangerous aspects to TTIP. A core element of TTIP is the ‘harmonising’ of EU and US regulations. As US regulations are generally lower than those of the EU, this will inevitably mean a downward push on our health and safety regulations. So it is actually about deregulation, removing the regulations that protect citizens from corporate power.

This agenda of regulating to get rid of regulations, hidden behind talk of ‘red tape’ and ‘better regulation’ is a main political trajectory now, not only at this international ‘trade’ level, but also in the UK (in Oliver Letwin’s Deregulation Bill) and in the EU’s REFIT program.

Who wants TTIP?

Our own government, on behalf of the City of London, takes a lead role in pushing for the liberalising of investment opportunities in public procurement and public services globally, allowing business interests to dominate democratic process. The City of London’s transnational financial service industry similarly dominates government policy-making here, including privatising and liberalising our public services. It is via trade agreements that these corporate - benefit shifts become fixed in international trade law, regardless of future government changes.

What you can do

Our public services – all of them - must be kept out of TTIP and similar agreements. If the deal is allowed to go through as it stands, our essential public services will be handed over to corporations so that they can increase their profits.

Some actions you can take:

• Learn more and take action by checking out information and campaign actions from Stop TTIP, War on Want, Global Justice Now and 38 Degrees.

• Write to your MPs and MEPs and ask them to oppose this dangerous corporate stitch-up.

• Alert your local council to TTIP and try for a council motion against TTIP (see Stop TTIP for information)

• Tell Which?, the UK consumer organisation, that you will not subscribe or consider subscribing to ‘Which?’ until it withdraws its support for TTIP and sign the petition to boycott Which?