archives: WTO InfoGATS: All Rules Broken in the Danish Parliament
- After Postponing and Quelling Debate on GATS the Danish Government
Could be in a Hot SpotFor years the Danish Parliament has been known to have relatively democratic decision procedures on many issues under the competence of the European Union, including when the issue is the WTO.
The debate on GATS over the past month has proved to the movements in the national anti-GATS campaign that this rosy image is unreasonable. No decisions were passed on the question of the GATS-offers before the deadline set at 26th of February due to manipulation by the government.
According to the rules agreed between government and the European Affairs Committee -a pretty strong parliamentary body central to decisionmaking in Denmark on EU affairs- all issues of im-portance, particularly when mandates are to be given to the European Commission by the Council of Ministers, has to be brought up at the meeting of the Committee. This is where the government seeks a mandate for whatever position it may take.
That never happened this time.
The GATS-issue has been pushed vigorously by a small left wing party, the Red Green Alliance, for months now, and the Alliance also insisted on several occassions to have the question of the man-date for the "offers" brought up at a meeting of the Committee.
At the first occassion (late january) the government claimed that it was unnecessary, and that the Committee would be informed about the outcome of the discussions at the Council of Ministers, once the GATS-offers document was sent to Geneva on the 31st of March at the latest.
At the second occassion the government claimed that a mandate for these negotiations was given at a previous debate in the plenary in October 2001. That debate, however, did not touch on the GATS-issue but was about Doha, the new round and the new issues, and on agriculture.
The Red Green Alliance has secured a debate in the European Affairs Committee and in plenary later this month (14th and 26th of March respectively). But thanks to the government these will take place long after the 26th of February deadline given by the Commission to the Member States for comments on the draft of the Commission on offers.
Apparently the Government is beginning to realise behind the scenes that they have a problem. But it's too early to say what the consequences will be. The fundamental problem is the lack of interest not to say complete ignorance of the main players in Parliament as well as in the European Affairs Committee.
The Committee received a delegation from the GATS-network/anti-GATS campaign ten days ago and listened carefully. On the agenda was -among other things- the question of transparency. The guests, including the chairman of the Danish Masters Association and some trade unionists, all complained about the lack of transparency including the fact that the draft offers was not made publicly accessible. They did inform the members of the Committee that the same document is now publicly available due to a leak.
When closing the session the chairman of the Committee remarked sarcastically: "You shouldnt worry about transparency, though. The documents seems to be leaked anyway!"
The leak, by the way, was no advantage to Danish MP's. The MP's received the documents a day after the draft offers was published on the GATSWatch-website with a huge "Confidential" stamp on it. One would think that since the documents are now in the public domain, MPs would be able to quote as much as they wish. That is not the case! Once a document has been classified as confi-dential and sent to the MPs they risk being penalised if they quote it or in any other way reveals to the public that they know the details of the document. So everyone in Denmark is in a better positi-on to speak about the draft offers than the MP's.
Next week the Red Green Alliance will put forward a formal complaint for debate in Parliament. For not only has the government broken the agreement with the European Affairs Committee -an agreement that has the status of rules for parliamentary decisionmaking- the government has also refrained from seeking a mandate for negotiations under national competence, particularly in the transport sector. That is probably against the law.
The consequences for the government could theoretically be very serious. Should major parties object to main issues in the draft offers, such as transport, the government could be forced to halt the process in the European Union. That would not only be a major embarassment to the govern-ment. It could also lead to a serious delay. The EU would simply not be able to meet the 31st of March deadline.
Realistically, though, given the passive attitude of say the Socialdemocratic Party, chances are that the government will get off the hook easily. The Danish Socialdemocratic Party has the habbit of listening very closely to Pascal Lamy and swallow every word of it. That will give the party pro-blems with parts of its constituency, increasingly aware of the dangers of GATS, and such a move would almost certainly give a small boost to the GATS-campaign. It would prove the claim that has come from the GATS-campaign from its inception that not only is the GATS an anti-democratic agreement, it also develops through undemocratic means.
wto news | wto info | www.agp.org (archives) | www.all4all.org