Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Interpretation of GATS and the selected EU RTAs -- Structure of GATS and the selected EU RTAs -- The scope of GATS and the selected EU RTAs -- Non-discrimination -- Market access -- Domestic regulation -- Transparency -- Exceptions

In 2013, the European Union (EU) initiated negotiations for regional trade agreements (RTAs) with the United States (US) and Japan, key trading partners and two of the largest economies in the world. Both countries have strong offensive interests in audio-visual services, a sector that is a sensitive defensive interest to the EU. In this article, it is argued that, besides the likelihood of it being unacceptable to the US and Japan, the 'cultural exception' for audio-visual services as applied in EU trade policy is ill-fitting for its purposes. First, it is too narrow at a cross-sectoral level and, second, it is too wide at the sectoral level. Therefore, it is claimed that the EU should reassess its negotiation strategy vis-à-vis audio-visual services. For inspiration in doing so, this article analyses four cases in which the US and Japan have negotiated bilaterally on audio-visual services with counterparties with defensive interests somewhat similar to the EU's, i.e., Canada, Korea, Switzerland, and India. It concludes that whilst the Canadian approach, i.e., exclusion, is unlikely to be acceptable to the EU's negotiating partners, the Korean, Swiss and, to a lesser extent Indian, approaches provide ample guidance for the EU to rethink its negotiation strategy for audio-visual services.

Trade disciplines under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) apply to the treatment of products (i.e., services) and to that of producers (i.e., service suppliers). Unlike rules on merchandise trade, the GATS thus covers the conditions governing a producer's commercial establishment and, hence, its competitive position. That raises the question whether Members are free to modify these conditions over time or, instead, whether they are required under the GATS Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) obligation to provide newly arriving producers with the most attractive conditions they accorded in the past. In the latter case, Members might shy away from launching trade-promoting initiatives beyond their existing GATS commitments, which have remained quite modest overall. As a way forward, Members could consider an informal understanding, possibly inspired by recent regional trade agreements (RTAs), to clarify the application of the GATS MFN obligation over time.
services, trade in services, GATS, RTAs, most-favoured nation, MFN, discrimination, time factor, temporal effect