ESF – International trade in services- Trade – European Union

The European Services Industry Voice For International Trade And Investment Negotiations

About Us

Who We Are

The European Services Forum is a network of high-level representatives from the European services sector, that is committed to actively promoting the liberalisation of international trade in services.

The network’s main stake lies in the liberalisation of the services markets in connection to the WTO GATS negotiations and the EU bilateral trade negotiations.

With a membership of major European companies and European and national trade sector specific associations based in all 27 Member States across the EU, ESF has become a major voice of the European services sector representing more than 30% of total trade (goods and services) of the European Union.

ESF is now widely recognized among stakeholders as the voice of the European service industries. Improved services market access as well as the facilitation of cross-border services provision for European countries in third countries belong to the Forum’s main priorities. Over the past years, ESF’s work has allowed its members to efficiently promote their interests.

ESF Chair

Andrew Buxton

1999 to 2002

Sir Iain Vallance

2002 to 2007

Mr. Christoffer Taxell

1999 to 2007

Sir Thomas Harris

2013 to 2017

Noel Clehane

2017 to 2021

Annette Meyer

Jan 2022 - Till Date

ESF Policy Committee Chairman

ESF Managing Director

Pascal Kerneis has served as Managing Director since ESF’s creation, in 1999. He is in charge of running the ESF Secretariat on a daily basis.

See ESF Members’ page here (with direct links).

The full list of ESF members is here below:

Amfori
Apple
Architects’ Council of Europe –ACE
British Telecom Plc
BDO
Bureau International des Producteurs et Intermédiaires d’Assurances – BIPAR
BUSINESSEUROPE
BUSINESSEUROPE WTO Working Group
Business Software Alliance – BSA
Conseil des barreaux de la Communauté Européenne – CCBE
Danish Shipping
Deutsche Post DHL
DI – Confederation of Danish Industries
Digital Europe
EK – Confederation of Finnish Industries
EuroCommerce
European Banking Federation – FBE
European Broadcasting Union – EBU
European Community Shipowners’ Associations – ECSA
European Express Association – EEA
European Federation of Engineering and Consultancy Associations – EFCA
European Public Telecom Network – ETNO
FratiniVergano European Lawyers
General Council of the Bar of England & Wales
Google
Huawei Europe
IBM Europe, Middle East & Africa
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
Insurance Europe
Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation – IBEC
Law Society of England & Wales
Le Groupe La Poste
Microsoft Corporation Europe
Mouvement des entreprises de France – MEDEF
Orange
PostEurop
Svenskt Näringsliv (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise)
TechUK
Telenor Group
TheCityUK
UPS
Vodafone
Zurich

Amfori
Architects’ Council of Europe –AC
Bureau International des Producteurs et Intermédiaires d’Assurances – BIPAR
BUSINESSEUROPE
BUSINESSEUROPE WTO Working Group
Business Software Alliance – BSA
Conseil des barreaux de la Communauté Européenne – CCBE
Danish Shipping
DI – Confederation of Danish Industries
Digital Europe
EK – Confederation of Finnish Industries
EuroCommerce
European Banking Federation – FBE
European Broadcasting Union – EBU
European Community Shipowners’ Associations – ECSA
European Express Association – EEA
European Public Telecom Network – ETNO
General Council of the Bar of England & Wales
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
Insurance Europe
Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation – IBEC
Law Society of England & Wales
Mouvement des entreprises de France – MEDEf
PostEurop
Svenskt Näringsliv (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise)
TechUK
TheCityUK

Apple
BDO
BUSINESSEUROPE
Deutsche Post DHL
FratiniVergano European Lawyers
Google
Huawei Europe
IBM Europe, Middle East & Africa
Le Groupe La Poste
Microsoft Corporation Europe
Orange
Telenor Group
UPS
Vodafone
Zurich

Global Services Coalitions

The various Coalitions of Service Industries listed below are gathered in the unformal Global Services Coalition (GSC), and adopt joint statements or communiqués on case by case basis. GSC also organises missions to Geneva to meet up with Ambassadors and negotiators of WTO countries:

Australian Services Roundtable (ASR)
BusinessNZ (New Zealand)
Barbados Coalition of Services Industries (BCSI)
Canadian Services Coalition (CSC)
Japan Services Network (JSN)
TheCityUK
US Coalition of Service Industries (CSI)

EU Institutions

European Commission

European Commission – DG Trade
EVP & European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis

European Parliament

European Parliament
European Parliament – International Trade Committee

International Org. and National Gov.

International organisations

World Trade Organisation (WTO)
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

National governments / bodies

Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)
Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Best Policies From ESF

What We Do

What we do

You will find here the various Position Papers adopted by ESF since its inception in 1999, classified by year and month of publication.

Position Papers

ESF has adopted a large number of position papers highlighting the interests of the European services industry with regard to international trade.

All activities

You will find here reports on additional ESF activities.

(Work in Progress)

WTO

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in 1994 at the outcome of the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

It is at that Ministerial Conference of Marrakesh that was created also the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

In this section we will look at the content of the GATS and of the WTO members commitments in trade in services, as well as to the content of the services negotiations that took place afterwards.

TISA

The plurilateral negotiations for the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) went from 2012 to 2016, but failed in October/November 2016.

Joint Statement Initiatives

At the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos-Aires in Argentina in December 2017, in a gloomy atmosphere where no progress seemed possible at multilateral level, like-minded groups of WTO members issued joint statements on advancing discussions on e-commerce, on developing a multilateral framework on investment facilitation, on launching a working group on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and on advancing ongoing talks on domestic regulation in services trade.

Bilateral Negotiations

The European Union concluded a considerable amount of Free Trade Agreements in the two last decades. Between 1999 and 2005, a moratorium prohibited the initiation of any new trade negotiations with EU third countries, giving priority to the multilateral level (WTO and Doha round negotiations). In 2005, the European Union decided that both multilateral and bilateral could be run in parallel.

EU-Australia FTA
EU-Indonesia FTA
EU-India FTA
EU-Thailand FTA, etc.

EU-Canada CETA
EU-Colombia, Peru and Ecuador (Andean)
EU-Japan EPA
EU-Singapore
EU-UK TCA, etc…

The dimension of Services Trade

Trade in Services Statistics

Global Statistics

This Section will provide statistics on international trade in services.

Sectoral Statistics

Countries Statistics

This section will reproduce the country specific statistics that are also posted in the various ESF webpages on the bilateral or multilateral negotiations. Most of the statistics have been updated in the course of 2023, although the Eurostat figures are not all available for the year 2022:

Links

EU Exports Of Services

1325 Bio US$

EU Jobs Related To Services Trade & Investment

+ 40 Million

EU FDI Related To Services Activities

11.4 Trillion €

EU Ranking in Global Services Trade

200 News From ESF

ESF Position Paper on EU-Philippines FTA