Secret
trade agreement
covering 68 percent of world
services published by
WikiLeaks
The text of a 19-page, international trade agreement being drafted in secret was published by WikiLeaks on Thursday as the transparency group’s editor commemorated his two-year anniversary confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
RT,
19
June, 2014
Fifty
countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in
Service Agreement, or TISA, including the United States, Australia
and the European Union. Despite vast international ties, however,
details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and
largely ignored by the press.
In
a statement published
by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks
said “proponents
of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services
markets,” and
have participated in “a
significant anti-transparency manoeuvre” by
working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68 percent of world
trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for
Competence in Research.
Touting
the deal earlier this year, the United States Chamber of
Commerce said a
successful TISA agreement would benefit America’s services industry
and its 96 million, or 84 percent, of the nation’s private sector
workers. “As
its chief goals, the TISA should expand access to foreign markets for
US service industries and ensure they receive national and
most-favored nation treatment,” the
chamber said of the deal in February. “It
should also lift foreign governments’ sectoral limits on investment
in services," “eliminate regulatory inconsistencies that at
times loom as trade barriers” and “prohibit
restrictions on legitimate cross‐border information flows and bar
local infrastructure mandates relating to data storage.”
WikiLeaks
warns that this largely important trade deal has been hardly
discussed in public, however, notwithstanding evidence showing that
the policy makers involved want to establish rules that would pertain
to services used by billions worldwide.
“The
draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the
expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in
New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by
preventing regulatory barriers,” WikiLeaks
said in a statement. “The
leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting
cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of
personal and financial data.”
Additionally,
the current draft also includes language inferring that, upon the
finishing of negotiations, the document will be kept classified for
five full years.
In
Australia, journalists at The
Age reported
that experts say the proposed changes included within the WikiLeaks
document “could
undermine Australia's capacity to independently respond to and
weather any future global financial crisis.”
Dr.
Patricia Ranald, a research associate at the University of Sydney and
convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, told
the paper that the documents suggest the US wants to “tie
the hands”
of other governments, including allied ones, by way of sheer
deregulation.
“Amendments
from the US are seeking to end publicly provided services like public
pension funds, which are referred to as 'monopolies' and to limit
public regulation of all financial services,” she
said. ''They
want to freeze financial regulation at existing levels, which would
mean that governments could not respond to new developments like
another global financial crisis.''
Earlier
this week, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said the TISA deal
was already well on its way to being put together.
"The
basic framework of the agreement is in place, initial market access
offers have been exchanged, and sector-specific work in areas like
telecommunications andfinancialservices is in full swing,” Froman
said, according to Reuters.
The
document published this week by WikiLeaks is dated April 14 — two
months before Froman last weighed in on the progress of the
negotiations and six months after his office hailed previous
re-write to the proposal. Along with representatives from Canada,
Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey and dozens others, American
policy makers will met in Geneva, Switzerland later this month
starting June 23 to begin the next round of negotiations.
WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange, meanwhile, remains confined to Ecuador’s
embassy in London where two years ago this Thursday he arrived
seeking asylum. Assange, 42, is wanted for questioning in Sweden but
fears his arrival there would prompt a swift extradition to the US
due to his role in exposing American state secrets.
Secret deal: bank free-
for-all
20 June, 2014
Leaked
WikiLeaks documents reveal the Abbott government is pressing ahead
with secret trade negotiations aimed at bringing about radical
deregulation of Australia's banking and finance sector.
Highly
sensitive details of the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)
negotiations, obtained by The Age, show Australian trade
negotiators are working on a financial services agenda that could end
the Australian government's ''four pillars'' banking policy and allow
foreign banks much greater freedom to operate in Australia. It could
also see Australians' bank account and financial data freely
transferred overseas, and allow an influx of foreign financial and
information technology workers.
Experts
warn the proposed changes could undermine Australia's capacity to
independently respond to and weather any future global financial
crisis.
Negotiations "could undo the effective regulation that sheltered Australia from the global finacial crisisi": Leon Carter from the FSU. Photo: Andrew De La Rue
But
Trade Minister Andrew Robb says the TiSA negotiations are a ''key
focus'' in his policy to ''open as many doors as possible'' for
Australian financial services exports.
''Financial
services are a key part of the negotiations for us, given the
strength of our sector in areas including banking and wealth
management, particularly in the major, growing markets of Asia,'' Mr
Robb told Fairfax Media
The
negotiations potentially pre-empt the Abbott government's Financial
System Inquiry - chaired by former Commonwealth Bank chief executive
David Murray - which will present an interim report on July 15.
Fifty
World Trade Organisation members, including Australia, Canada, Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan and the European Union (representing its 28
member countries), are engaged in the TiSA negotiations.
Australia's
major banks strongly support the talks, with ANZ arguing that there
is ''a significant opportunity not only for lowering barriers to
trade for current parties to the negotiations, but also to set
important targets for further liberalisation in the future by nations
currently not party to the negotiation''.
Key
provisions in the leaked draft text include a United States proposal
for a ''standstill'' on financial regulation. Dr Patricia Ranald,
research associate at the University of Sydney and convener of the
Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, said the US wants to
''tie the hands'' of governments
Trade minister, Andrew Robb
''Amendments
from the US are seeking to end publicly provided services like public
pension funds, which are referred to as 'monopolies' and to limit
public regulation of all financial services,'' she said.
''They
want to freeze financial regulation at existing levels, which would
mean that governments could not respond to new developments like
another global financial crisis.''
The
draft TiSA text also includes US and European Union proposals for
each party to the agreement to allow financial service providers of
other parties the right to establish or expand within its territory,
''including through the acquisition of existing enterprises''.
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