Global Policy Forum

Translation by: David and Barbara Forbes

Common Platform - Demonstration in Geneva, 29 June 2002

Initial Signatories:

AdG, Agir í  Gauche 01, Agraf 01, ANS, APCM, Attac Suisse, Attac Gení¨ve, Attac Jeunes, Attac (Gex), Attac Uni, CADTM, CETIM, Collectif Santé Travail Mondialisation, Comedia, Comité citoyen pour le maintien des bureaux de poste í  Lau-sanne, Coordination Enseignants Gení¨ve, COTMEC, CUAE, Déclaration de Berne, l'émiliE, FSU, INWO, JA, JSS, LCR 01, LCR 74, Marche Mondiale des Femmes, MPS, PSG, PCF (Gex), Sep-tembre blanc, SIB, SIT, Solidarités, SSP/VPOD Suisse, SSP Gení¨ve, Touche pas í  ma poste, Uniterre, Les Verts Suisse, Les Verts Gení¨ve...

With hardly anybody being aware of it, the Swiss government - like all the other governments which belong to the World Trade Organisation - is secretly re-negotiating the General Agreement on Trades and Services (GATS) within the WTO. Far removed from all social and environmental concerns, this agreement has been constructed in response to the needs of the multinationals. The liberalisation and privatisation measures imposed via the GATS benefit large enterprises and financial investment companies almost exclusively. This agreement is therefore one of the most powerful weapons wielded by governments to provide an initial opening up to competition in the public services, placing them under the rules of the capitalist market, and ultimately transforming them into privatised concerns which will generate profits. Secondly, this agreement enables attacks on the very principle of free and universal public services in the name of the fight against unfair competition. It is a straightforward blackmail: either you cut subsidies to the public services, or you give equivalent subsidies to the private sector.

GATS Jeopardises Public Services!

The meeting of ministers of the WTO held at Doha in November 2001 re-launched the process of liberalising the services covered by GATS and set two important deadlines: by 30 June 2002 each member state has to inform the WTO and the countries concerned of its bids in the service sectors which it hopes will be liberalised on the territory of other member states; and then, each member state has until 31 March 2003 to inform the WTO and other member states of its own offers of liberalisation.

These demands for liberalisation particularly threaten the public services of countries in the South and in eastern Europe: if these sectors are embryonic or under-developed, they will be destroyed by competition from abroad; if they do not yet exist, they will be prevented from coming into being, thus reinforcing and perpetuating poverty. But even in the North, we have been made aware of the most obvious effects of this development, such as in the British railways, the electric power system in California, the postal, health, and educational systems. a worsening of the quality of delivery, growing inequality, price increases and deterioration of working conditions in the public sector, with significant consequences for women's work.

However, resistance to the selling-off of public services is increasing!

Whether this resistance takes the form of protests by consumer groups and trade union activists against plans to restructure the postal system, or mobilisation in the health, energy or water sectors, or actions in the universities, in public transport or in schools, these mobilisations are essential for creating the critical mass without which the selling-off of the public services cannot be prevented. Only the creation of a large-scale popular movement will be able to reverse the system and its underlying forces.

Our struggle is challenging the world as it is today: a world dominated by an economic system which, in spite of immense production capacity, cannot respond to basic social needs, with the excuse that they would not allow it to make enough profit. On the contrary, we want to raise the values of democracy, equality and solidarity to the highest level in order to promote and develop the genuine social and economic rights of each individual and every people, regardless of their financial situation. The basic social control of services will also guarantee an ecologically viable future for our planet. In short: the creation of a different world!

For this reason, we demand immediately:

- Complete transparency and a broad public debate to define democratically the policies on public services which our governments are pursuing;

- The abandonment of the negotiation and implementation of GATS;

- The maintenance and development of public services in such sectors as water, health, education, social services, social housing, culture, environment, the media, communications, transport, energy;

- No privatisation! No liberalisation! No to the dictates of profit-making!

Yes to public services, integrated within their geographical area and accessible to all, under the control of those who use them and those who work in them. The current negotiations between the governments of the member states of the WTO on GATS are taking place in extreme secrecy, and cut off from any democratic debate, even though they are of extreme importance for the conditions of life of all peoples.

This is in particular true of the Commission of the European Union, which refuses any transparency in this matter, and has just sent a 15-page memo to the Swiss government containing its demands for across the board liberalisation.

In Switzerland, this portfolio is the responsibility of Pascal Couchepin's Department, which is not at all reassuring. Indeed, this Federal Councillor is known for his hard-line neo-liberal positions, as proven by his recent statements. According to him, "The state should limit itself to a minimum of services, contracted out to private or semi-public enterprises;" furthermore, it should "abandon the goal of redistribution towards peripheral regions, even if this is painful in terms of the reduction of services provided, or of the loss of jobs;" it is also, according to Couchepin, a good thing to encourage co-operation between private enterprise and public services in all cases where privatisation is not possible for political reasons. He also tells us that, if strict economic criteria were adhered to, only 800 of the present 3500 post offices would be kept open; and finally, he advocates speeding up the dismantling of the Post Office's monopoly by lowering the standards which are blocking competition from private enterprise and by removing, as rapidly as possible, all subsidies to this public enterprise.

Contact for this article: Secretariat of ATTAC Switzerland This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (French-speaking) or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (German-speaking)

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