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Many of you have signed the Open letter to Indian MPs demanding parliamentary scrutiny of Indias GATS positions in the run-up to the Hong Kong Ministerial. (Pasted below with the present list of signatories) This letter has been personally submitted to several MPs and political parties and has been faxed/ emailed to over 450 MPs of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. We know for a fact that at least 3 MPs have raised questions and demanded a debate in the parliament on Indias stand at Hong Kong. The government is of course resisting and we need to put more pressure to ensure that elected representatives discuss Minister Kamal Naths mandate at Hong Kong.
In the meanwhile there are disturbing developments in Geneva. The 2nd Draft of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration is out and Annex C on services continues to be the most contentious and trade analysts expect that GATS will be main battle at Hong Kong.
Several developing countries are resisting this ambitious outcome on services. These include The African Group, the ACP Group, the LDC Group, several ASEAN and Caribbean and Latin American countries (including Brazil and Venezuela).
India is isolated in supporting and pushing this text. This text is highly problematic because it calls for a fundamental change in the flexible structure of the GATS and mandates plurilateral negotiations in which countries like the EU and US will band together and pressurize developing countries to open up basic services. Developed countries are likely to use this text to push for aggressive sectoral negotiations in areas such as finance, retail, telecommunications, energy, health, education and water. Several developing countries are already grappling with the impact of the last set of sectoral negotiations in 1997. Mexico recently lost a case in the WTO due to commitments in made in Telecommunications and was forced to change legislation in favour of US Telecom companies. A few days ago Japan submitted a proposal for intense negotiations in 2006 on sectorals and is demanding that a deal to open up services be finalised by December 2006.
We need to raise basic questions to the UPA government, MPs and MLAs on this process in Geneva and Hong Kong next week. Enforcing the mandate of the present text will force India to undergo legislative and regulatory reform in several crucial services sectors. This requires a political consensus both at the parliamentary and state legislative level.
The minority UPA government does not have this mandate. It should not be taking decisions that limit the ability of future governments to introduce public interest policies and legislations in the public interest.
If you havent already done so, please send the letter to your local MPs and ask them to raise questions in the ongoing session of Parliament.
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