The services you need should not be TTIPed over

When looking for a good school for your children, a nice apartment to live in provided by social housing services or a hospital to be treated in, is the first question that comes to mind, “is it publicly or privately funded?” No, your primary concerns are: is it a good place for me or for the people I care for? Can I afford it? Is it close by? Does it address my needs? Fundamentally, you consider these services to be essential and for the benefit of all. Because they are a necessity they should be available, affordable, accessible, universal and of quality.

If you agree, then you should be paying close attention to the current negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – the EU-US trade agreement. Why? Because during last week’s round of trade talks between the EU and US it became apparent that both blocs want to prioritise the source of funding over the type of service delivered. In this vain, a service will be excluded from the scope of TTIP if it is publicly funded, but included if it is privately funded. All of a sudden we are no longer focusing on the nature of the service, but rather its source of funding to determine whether or not it should be integrated into a trade agreement. I believe that the source of funding should not determine the identity of a service.

Due to the economic crisis and diminishing public finances, it has become increasingly common for the state to shirk its responsibility to provide and fund services. This has led to more and more services of general interest and social services becoming privately funded, such as we have seen with the privatisation of hospitals in Spain in recent years due to austerity measures.

At Social Platform we do not want to look at how services are funded – we look at the mission they aim to deliver in response to your needs, and we strongly believe that a profit-making logic should not prevail over the general interest. Therefore we are making a very clear demand: all services of general interest in the education, healthcare and social sectors – no matter their source of financing – must be excluded from the scope of TTIP.

We are of an opposite opinion with EU and US negotiators: we do not make a distinction between private and publicly funded services of general interest. Instead, they should be treated equally and in response to standards of availability, accessibility, affordability and quality set my states and public authorities.

We will continue to advocate towards this goal. Last week we participated in the European Commission’s DG Trade stakeholder dialogue, where we reiterated these points, and we will continue to advocate towards this goal.

Let’s engage!

Pierre Baussand, Director

Read related article: ‘Social Platform’s voice at the TTIP stakeholders presentation event’