YOU refer to legal advice given to Unite that public health providers could be exposed to private "cherry picking" under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated between the US and the EU ("Sturgeon backs plea to protect the NHS", The Herald, February 19).
As the EU Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, has said, the EU will make sure governments do not have to open up any of their public services markets (such as publicly-funded health services) to private operators if they do not want to, and that should they choose to do so, there is nothing to prevent them reversing this decision in future. It makes no difference whether a member state already allows some services to be outsourced to private providers, or not.
An Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in TTIP could not prevent a service being brought back in to the public sector or force the payment of compensation for such an action. Authorities retain the right to open or close a particular public service to competition should they choose to in the future. A decision not to renew a contract would not give grounds for an ISDS claim.
Graham Blythe,
Head of Office, European Commission in Scotland,
9 Alva Street, Edinburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article