Crime pays under TISA

“The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) will help international crime syndicates if it is adopted,” says John Ring, Foreign Affairs spokesman for the New Zealand Democrats for Social Credit Party.

“Currently Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States, and the 27 member states of the European Union are negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement.

“There are two main influences behind these negotiations. One is that there are supposed to be negotiations about agriculture and development in the World Trade Organisation, but the United States and Europe don't want to negotiate on those issues, so they want other talks to discuss other things.

“By participating in these negotiations, New Zealand's government is accepting that strategy.

“The second big influence is that transnational corporations in banking, energy, insurance, telecommunications, transportation, water, and other services sectors, working through lobby groups like the US Coalition of Service Industries (USCSI) and the European Services Forum (ESF) have steadily lobbied negotiators to keep pushing a liberalization, deregulation and sometimes privatization agenda in industries such as transport, (tele-) communications, construction, retail, engineering, energy provision, water distribution, accountancy, marketing, publicity, banking, insurance, nature conservation, entertainment, museums, education, health, funeral services, and much more.

“There is an extreme level of confidentiality about these talks, and so far there have been no leaks.

“One area of concern relates to the combination of Switzerland, Colombia, and Mexico. Swiss banks try to attract criminals to be their customers, while Mexico and Colombia are major centres of illegal drug dealing. Further deregulating the financial sector would make it easier for them to do deals with each other,” says Mr Ring.

ENDS

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