Action Briefing Apr 2003 - May 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

The Great GATS Sell-Off

Governments attempt to deliver public services for the benefit of the population but by 2005 control of public services will lie with company shareholders. Why? Because of GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

On March 13th Local and Regional Governments throughout Europe were targeted by campaigners advertising “The Sale of the Century”. Protesters visited 11 Regional Government Offices in the UK, delivering a letter outlining their concerns and in some places making use of lively street auctions and market traders “selling” basic services to members of the public and unscrupulous big business "fat cats".

In Birmingham, we were joined by Coventry World Development Movement (WDM) and fellow local Friends of the Earth groups. The public were invited to see for themselves at a grand display board depicting vital services such as water, sanitation, and electricity as “for sale”, while menacing businessmen vied with the campaigners. Members of the public also signed a petition to the DTI and wrote letters to MPs.

We were raising three main concerns: (1) in opening up basic services such as water, health care and education to the free market, GATS puts profit before people’s basic rights and needs; (2) GATS undermines democracy at regional, national and international levels by being effectively irreversible, locking in future governments to its free market rules; and (3) GATS negotiations are taking place in secret with no proper public consultation or parliamentary scrutiny.

We targeted Government Office, firstly because these offices have a growing role in economic development and decision making and, secondly, because there is grave concern that regional and local governments have no idea of the potential impact of GATS on their ability to regulate services and service contracts.

The high point of the day for me was our brief visit to Government Office itself. Rose from WDM and myself arrived at the main entrance only to find that they’d laid on two security guards just for us! Feeling very important, we presented our letter to the Corporate Affairs Manager (a.k.a. head of security), who promised us a meeting with Graham Garbutt, the Regional Director. As you might expect, we are still waiting to hear from Mr Garbutt, but I guess a couple more visits to his office and the security budget will be mounting....

Jenny Thatcher