A chara, - May Lynam (April 14th) is correct in highlighting the role the Nice Treaty will play in facilitating the corporate takeover of public services throughout the EU. The European Commission, and indeed the civil servants of the EU's member-states, have long demonstrated their enthusiasm for the World Trade Organisation's efforts to make the world a better place for corporations and a worse one for citizens and democratic government.
The EU is currently engaged with the WTO in negotiating the "liberalisation" of vital public services under what is called the General Agreement on Trades in Services (GATS). This agreement, to be concluded by the end of 2002, will legally compel the sovereign states of the EU to open vital public services such as education, health, transport and energy to private, for-profit ownership.
The Nice Treaty is a crucial step in granting the power the EU needs to sign up to this GATS agreement. It gives the Council of Ministers the right to accept GATS without having to consult the citizens upon whose lives it will have a massive and devastating impact. Nor has any role been given to the European Parliament to intervene in the GATS process to defend citizens' rights and public services. The Nice Treaty marks a massive and unprecedented shift of power away from citizens to an unaccountable Commission and an increasingly pro-business Council of Ministers. That is why I believe it should be rejected. - Is mise,
Donncha O Briain, Brighton Terrace, Sandycove, Co Dublin.