By means of GATS (General Agreement on Trade on Services, a WTO - World Trade Organisation - treaty) state (public) services like education services and healthcare are declared a tradable commodity. At the moment the liberalisation of education and healthcare sectors are being negociated under the umbrella of GATS.

The USA, New Sealand and Australia made proposals for the GATS-negociations about education. The European Commission ( The unelected "government" of the EU, which negotiates in the WTO on behalf of EU member states) has also demonstrated its commitment to the liberalisation of public services. The European Union already accepted to open their markets for primary education services, secundary education services, higher education services and adult education services for public - private partnerships. And since the negociations about education are not finished yet, there is a danger that the EU will even go further. Given that the Commission's 'Towards GATS 2000' statement of intent calls GATS "first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of  business", the coverage of education by GATS will contribute to the extension of private initiatives to education at all levels throughout the world (at January 1st 2002 144 countries were member of the WTO). At the WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001 the WTO member states have agreed that requests for countries to open up their services sectors will be submitted by 30 June 2002 and initial offers of countries to liberalise will be submitted by 31 March 2003. Negotiations on services, as with the other agreements, will be completed by 1 January 2005. GATS rules may effectively prevent government subsidies from being selectively applied to public services. There are two key trade principles at the core of the GATS. These two principles are designed to limit government interventions in the service sector. For example under the national treatment principle, once a government signs up a service, it could face WTO challenge if it implements legislation which favours local suppliers over foreign suppliers. This has implications when it comes to the granting of subsidies. For example, where a GATS commitment has been made, governments providing subsidies to domestic service suppliers also have to make an equivalent subsidy available to foreign providers operating in the country. This raises the possibility of having a basic government-funded education system, with funding given to all providers (private- and public), and then allowing individuals to enhance this by paying top-up fees to providers with varying so called "elite universities", or for the provision of 'optional extras' at an additional charge. In other words, GATS could dramatically boost the trend away from universal and equal access to free, publicly provided quality education, towards the spread of education systems based on the ability of pupils and students to pay. Another big problem is that the education programms will change when there is more and more competition between private- and public schools and universities. Private institutions will only learn people what "big bussiness" wants them to know. The companies will only employ people that learned what the companies want, there will be no place for independent thinking people. So state schools and universities will follow, otherwise they will lose pupils and students. Perhaps the biggest threat posed by GATS is the threat to democracy. Once decisions are reached under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), government activities in the services sector that are seen to 'interfere' with trade faces the threat of WTO legal action. GATS means that if a government listens to the voice of its people and responds by making appropriate policy changes it also faces the threat of WTO legal action. For commercial and political reasons it may be easier to "trade" higher education in particular for access to other countries' markets for EU businesses. But the stakes are high: Pascal Lamy, the EU Trade commissionair, stated, "For the EU, services are central. We are number one in the world: 26% of world trade. Services account for two thirds of EU GNP" and on another location he said about the trade in services:"If we want to improve our own access to foreign markets then we can't keep our protected sectors out of the sunlight. We have to be open in negotiating them all if we are going to have the material for a big deal. In the US and the EU, that means some pain in some sectors but gain in many others, and I think we both know that we are going to have to bite the bullet to get what we want". Alexa McDonough, the leader of Canada's National Democratic Party, stated that the GATS constitutes "the greatest transfer of economic and political power in history... from communities and nation states into the hands of a small number of global corporations".

The consequences:
- More and more schools and universities in Europe are being privatised
- Studyfees are being introduced or the fees are getting higher and higher
- The right to get a good education is more and more a question of money
- Democratic rights for pupils and students at schools and universities are being cut
- The things we learn are increasingly the things companies want us to learn