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World financial powers launch
counter-attack
In Brussels alone, finance capital has a regiment of
1,700 lobbyists, and spends more than 120 million
euros on lobbying
Joaquín Arriola
Thus the U.S. and
EU are working hand in hand to impose a global
agreement on liberalization of national financial
services markets.
World trade amounts to 13 billion euros a year, but
this enormous figure is much lower than the volume
of currency transactions, which reached 52 trillion
in non-regulated markets, seven trillion in
regulated markets. Trading of financial products
linked to currency in London alone - 20 trillion -
surpasses the value of all visible world trade. The
total in non-regulated markets of derivatives
(currency, interest rates, raw material futures,
stock…) exceeds 500 trillion euros a year, and 50
trillion in regulated markets.
Traded on global markets annually are stocks, bonds
and commercial agreements worth some 65 trillion
euros, and insurance policies covering loans in case
of default valued at another 15 trillion. Even
though the rate of profit may be low, given the
volume of transactions, the total value of earnings
gained in global financial markets easily surpasses
the value of all world trade.
In
Brussels alone, finance capital has a regiment of
1,700 lobbyists and spends more than 120 million
euros annually on lobbying. By way of comparison,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) directs 20
million euros a year toward supervision of the
financial system.
The principal objective of these lobbyists is to
prevent the financial crisis from leading to the
adoption of policies to supervise and regulate the
financial market, which would put their lucrative
business at risk. These agents control all of the
European Union’s financial supervision bodies, and
the correlation of political forces has allowed
these representatives of finance capital to become
the Commission’s principal spokespersons, to such an
extent that policies advanced by Brussels reflect
these interests and not those of the people.
Although financial liberalization has been a weapon
employed by the United States - to compensate for
the deterioration of its productive and commercial
power with financial power - large French and German
banks (Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Crédite Agricole,
Société Générale…) also control a significant
portion of the world financial market. The U.S. and
EU want to preserve some of the specifics of their
respective markets, thus, during negotiations on the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
the U.S. refused to discuss the subject of financial
regulation, despite European insistence. In March,
the UE drafted a proposal for a common regulatory
regimen. In an attempt to influence the intransigent
U.S. position, European commissioner Michel Barnier
traveled to Washington to reaffirm the desire of
European leaders to keep the United States as its
preferred partner in this area, despite differing
opinions with regards to the regulation and
functioning of derivative markets on the two sides
of the North Atlantic. (In Europe, everything
transpires through banks, while in the U.S. there
are powerful financial markets outside of the
banking system.)
Nevertheless, both parties agree that they must come
to an agreement to guarantee control over the
financial market which is intent upon asserting its
power on a world scale.
Isolated disagreements, reflecting aspects of
inter-imperialist rivalries, are resolved in
agreements based on the common goal of imposing a
neo-liberal financial model on the rest of the world
- be it a bank version, or an investment fund
version
After the failure of the World Trade Organization to
reach an agreement on liberalization of financial
services, the United States and EU initiated
bilateral negotiations on a Trade In Services
Agreement, TISA, with the participation of nations
subordinated to the U.S. in the Americas and Asia.
The objective is to impose the model in these
countries and regions where there is less resistance
than in those with more self-directed models, such
as China, India, Russia or the ALBA countries.
Thus the U.S. and EU are working hand in hand to
impose a global agreement on liberalization of
national financial services markets, just as was
reflected in a recently revealed document from the
month of April in which the EU demands no protective
regulatory measures as it did during TTIP
negotiations. On the contrary, the document is a
canto to the broadest liberalization, directed
toward facilitating the work of financiers in
dominant countries, which don't even have a branch
office in a given destination country, but can offer
there a full range of services such as insurance,
derivatives, investment funds, etc. Moreover, the
document includes a series of articles denying
countries which adhere to the proposal the option of
modifying the regulatory framework, if this would
affect foreign financial entities operating in this
market.
The secretism with which these negotiations are
proceeding, which only make the news when documents
are leaked, reflect the anti-popular nature of the
plan and its imperialist objective of capturing
national surplus value via global financial
instruments. It is puzzling that European
negotiators inconsistently accept a global pact
which has as its single principle unencumbered
access to national financial markets, when they have
insisted on the importance of regulation during
previous talks with the United States. Finance
capital knows how to play its cards, and is capable
of skirting legal limitations established in other
frameworks, and in the end, impose its own rules.
Much is at stake in this battle, the viability and
sovereignty of nations. (Mundo Obrero)
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