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New EU Constitution threatens free education

Tom Armstrong | 24.07.2003 18:03 | Education | Globalisation | Social Struggles

As a result of massive campaigns against the WTO's General Agreement in Trade and Services (GATS), the European Commission announced that European Higher Education will not be included in the current GATS negotiations.

However, a new threat looms because the EC merely proposed to drop public services such as public health and education from the GATS negotiations, but now such propstitions can be vetoed by any single EU member state if the new EU constitiution goes through unamended.

GATS has long since been a controverisial issue, with many groups like the student envionmental, trade justice and human rights network People and Planet, War on Want, Friends of the Earth, and the World Development Movementall opposing this WTO agreement that could bring misery and poverty for millions, if not billons of people worldwide.

Past Indymedia articles explaining GATS and about actions against the GATS:1 2 3



With the new constitiution, votes at the Council regarding the named services will no longer have to be unaminous, but the majority of member states will decide on propositions in the fields of public health and education, meaning that individual member states cannot decide the fate of their public services or education systems, if the majority are in favour of libreralistion, then they have to go with it.

See also article by Education is Not For Sale and the European Education Forum

Tom Armstrong
- e-mail: **NO**tomarmstrong at riseup dot net **SPAM**

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