Impact of TTIP on regions and cities must be clarified
Rapporteur Markus Töns (DE/PES) stresses risks in public procurement and public services sectors and calls for greater involvement of CoR
A draft opinion on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) adopted on 17 December by the Committee of the Regions' Commission for Economic and Social Policy (ECOS), warns that the trade agreement's impact on local and regional authorities has not been sufficiently clarified, especially with regards to public procurement and public services.
Regions and cities acknowledge the growth potential of the TTIP, especially for European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are the engine of job creation in Europe. Nevertheless they are concerned by the EU-US partnership's implications at the local and regional level and demand, as part of the European Commission's new impetus for increased transparency of the negotiations, for the Committee of the Regions, to be included in the European Commission's advisory group accompanying the negotiations. The draft opinion by Markus Töns (DE/PES), Member of the North Rhine-Westphalia Landtag, highlights a number of potential risks threatening the balance between the need to foster competition and innovation in the EU, and the compliance with the principles of local self-government and public control on services of general interest.
According to the opinion, public procurement and public services are among the most complex and challenging aspects of the negotiations and need far greater clarity. The current EU public procurement legal framework allows for special treatment for in-house companies, cooperation between local authorities, for the water sector as well as for emergency services. These exceptions need to be safeguarded, insists the CoR rapporteur. He also highlights the risk of imbalance in relation to public procurement with currently 85% of public tenders in the EU open to US suppliers, while only 32% of US tenders are open to EU suppliers.
With regard to the notion of "public services" as mentioned in the negotiating mandate, the draft opinion argues that a horizontal exemption from all obligations under the principle of market access and national treatment should cover all services which are subject to specific regulatory regimes or obligations for the service providers at national, regional or local level in connection with the general interest. This should apply to services such as water and energy, waste and sewage, emergency services, public health and social services, public transport, housing, urban planning and development.
The draft opinion also rejects to open pre-school, school, higher, adult and continuing education services with mixed public-private financing further to competition, since the multilateral GATS agreement already contains numerous commitments to liberalisation in this sector.
Finally, the text argues that Member States and local and regional authorities must still be able to take any regulatory or financial measure necessary to promote cultural diversity, freedom and pluralism of the media and to preserve or develop audio-visual and other similar services in order to meet the democratic, social and cultural needs of each society, irrespective of which technology or distribution platform is used.
The draft opinion is scheduled to be adopted by the Committee's plenary on 12-13 February 2015.
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