The European Education Is Not For Sale network, (EINFS) is at the forefront of the campaign against the commercialisation of education under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treaty. It was started by a few students from Dortmund, Germany, with a call for a week of protests in December 2001 across the European Union and has made big steps forward across Europe, but not yet here in Ireland.

Back in December 2001, there were strikes, occupations of schools and universities, demonstrations and a lot of other protests against the commercialisation of education in many European cities; Bochum, Halle, Augsburg, Potsdam, Cologne, Madrid, Salamanca, Barcelona, Seville, Madrid, Montpellier, Thessalonica, Athens, Patras, Utrecht, Brussels and many more.
At the end of that week of protests many students from across Europe marched in a demonstration in Brussels during the EU summit. On December 14 there was an international meeting of around 150 students and school students in Brussels where they decided to continue the protests in 2002. This year students from Asia, the USA, Canada, Australia and European countries who are not a members of the European Union joined the network and signed the call education is not for sale on the EINFS website (you or your organization can sign the call at www.education-is-not-for-sale.org).
In many countries there will be protests at a decentralized level during the Forum about education and trade in Washington DC (May 23-24), which is being organized by the Worldbank and the OECD. During the Washington conference politicians and people from the education 'industry' from across the world will talk about the commercialisation of education. One of the items they are going to talk about is GATS and education. In Germany students and school students will start a series of protests against tuition fees and the commercialisation of education on May 23, hoping to surround a conference of the ministers of education from all the German states in Hessen. In the weeks after this action there are many small actions planned, including a demonstration in Düsseldorf and a social Forum about education. Protests will continue in Europe for the rest of the summer semester. Some German University students are considering a strike, especially because of new developments in the state of Nordrhein Westfalen where the state government is proposing a new fee which students would have to pay directly to the treasury department. Above that the state government is also considering to stop payments to the "Studentenwerke", a university body that subsidises food for students in cantines, apartments for students etc. This will make both food and accommodation much more expensive university. In Austria students are mobilizing in several Austrian cities for protests during the OECD/Worldbank conference. In Brussels there will be protests as well. In many cities across the globe there will be protests during the Washington Forum. If you want an action to be announced or reported after the protest took place, write to the EINFS media-group: media@education-is-not-for-sale.org. There will also be a student demo in Washington DC.
The main event of the summer though will be protests against the commercialisation of education in Europe and beyond in Seville (Spain) during the EU summit on June 20,21 and 22. After demonstrations in Barcelona on March 16 and the forum about education and culture in Salamanca on March 17-19, where students from all over Europe adopted the Salamanca declaration (read the declaration at the EINFS website: www.education-is-not-for-sale.org ) and had a demonstration at the last day of the forum, with students teachers and school students are mobilizing for an Europe-wide demonstration against the commercialisation of education in Europe and beyond, and the repression against students by the Spanish state (a lot of students who where protesting against the L.O.U., a new Spanish education law where arrested and 6 students of the university of Seville were expelled from the university because of political activities) during the EU summit in Seville at June 21. On June 20 there will be an international meeting of the education is not for sale network in Seville. One of the items to discuss is the protests in the 2nd part of 2002, during the EU presidency of Denmark. There is a massive demo planned for June 22 against the Europe of capital in a student and school student block.
At the beginning of 2002 a few members of parliament of the German socialist party asked the German government 19 questions concerning the GATS negotiations. The answer of the German government came at April 18 and about the questions relating to education, the government answered that the European Union (which is negotiating the GATS treaty for its member states) said that one of the EU member states proposed to demand the United States to open up their market for higher education on the same level as the European Union did in 1995. This proposal isn't discussed inside the European Union yet. Furthermore the German government said that in Germany itself the question of exact demands for educational services are not finished yet...
The Federal government said they provided several industry lobby groups and the workers union DGB with a document of 1600 pages with drafts of the European Union concerning the ongoing GATS negotiations. The documents are confidential (but... you can read most of them on www.gatswatch.org ) and the EU still have to vote on some of them. The government also said that the documents are not for a broad audience but that it is not out of the question that the German parliament will get the documents...