Newsletter 6: EU-wide pupil- and studentstrike

In this short newsletter some information about the first actions that took place and the demonstration and meeting in brussels. At the end of the newsletter you can find our webadress and the adresses of our mailinglists. At our mailinglists you will be provided with the latest updates from various countries and you can ask questions to other groups from Europe.

Students of the university in Utrecht (Netherlands)started their first actions on Mondaymorning (1012.2001) at their university. They put posters on advertising billboards with a text against the commercialisation of education. At the university of Bochum (Germany) students blocked the entrance of the university symobolicly with 300 cartons with message like for instance „Education is not a product" . The carton wall is about 50 meters long and 3 meters high. The wall is being build to make clear that the commercialisation of education (GATS) will block the entrance of the universitiy for a lot of people in the future. The action will go on for the rest of the day.

On our website you can find on the English-speaking page „Protests" lots of information about the upcoming protests in all EU countries. On the German-language pages you can find this information at"Protest-termine".

We have made a proposal to discuss about the future of the international network. We would like to do this by discussing about the instalation of a workinggroup that should work out a paper wich should describe the basis of further cooperation between the different groups of all countries in their struggle against the privatisation of education and the GATS-treaty and propose further actions. In our opinion the workinggroup should be with people of different countries and different political groups (The network has groups with a socialist, anarchist, anti neo-liberal globalism and social democratic backgrounds) so we get input of all different groups. We propose to give this group enough time to have a good discussion in order write a good document. We think the document should be finished in May 2002 and then further discussed at the next meeting. A good place for the next meeting could be Sevilla (In June 2002, during the EU summit in Sevilla), Spain. Another point should be the introduction of all the participating groups and the actions that took place in various countries between December the 10th and December the 14th. Somebody from denmark will provide some information about the EU summit in Copenhagen in December 2002. Another point of discussion should be the GATS-treaty and the Bologna-declaration.
The international meeting of students and pupil in Brussels will take place at:

December 14
from 19h until 21.30h

Ecole Ouvrière Supérieure (EOS) (It is a school in strike because of the actions)
Rue Brogniez 44
1070 Anderlecht (Brussels)
It is 500 m from the South railwaystation.

December 14: Demonstration in Brussels

The city of Brussels made a lot of trouble about the route of the demonstration. There is an agreement on the route between D14, Attac and several NGO`s and the city of Brussels about the route now. Starting place of the demonstration is :
The Little Castle (name of the asylum seekers centre
Leaving at 11 o'clock from the Little Castle (Watch for the giant banner: Education is not for sale! there will be the educationblock 9ième de Ligne, Brussels

Look for the latest information at the D14 website: http://www.d14.be The website is in Dutch, English and French. Some parts are also availble in Spanish and Italian. At their website you will also find a citymap of Brussels and a formular where you can ask for sleepingplaces (But do it fast!).

The Services-industry is statisfied with Qatar

The services-industry says it`s very statisfied with the results of the WTO-summit in Qatar that took place from November the 9th until November the 14th.
On services, ministers acknowledged the work already undertaken in the
negotiations as well as the large number of proposals submitted by WTO members on a wide range of issues. They also reaffirmed the guidelines and procedures adopted by the WTO's Services Council in March 2001 for continuing the
negotiations.

The ministers added that countries participating in the negotiations should
submit initial requests June 30, 2002, for services market access commitments they would like to see other WTO members make. This would be followed by the submission of initial market access offers by the participants no later than March 31, 2003, at which time the intensive stage of bargaining would begin.

Benchmarks, Deadlines Seen as Key

J. Robert Vastine, president of the U.S. Coalition of Services Industries,
said his group was satisfied with the outcome from Doha. "The major thing for us is that we obtained benchmarks and deadlines with respect to the submission of offers," Vastine told on Nov. 19th.

Vastine said the delay in getting to the bargaining phase of the negotiations was not necessarily a negative thing. "This will take lots of educating, both by industry and governments, on issues like transparency and domestic regulation," he noted. "A lot of people just don't understand these issues. We will need all that time to educate folks, which might end up in the submission of a higher level of offers."

The round is being conducted as a single undertaking, meaning that even if
a deal on services were clinched early on, a final deal would be contingent on completion of negotiations on all other issues.

The Doha declaration, however, does provide that early agreements may be
implemented on a provisional or definitive basis pending the conclusion of the round.

Christopher Roberts of the European Services Forum, which includes
representatives from more than 30 European services sectors, said his industry association was "generally happy with the outcome in Doha. We knew that, if the WTO negotiations on services are in due course to achieve substantial results, we had to have a round."

"Ideally we would have preferred an earlier start to the request/offer
process on services," Roberts admitted, "but it is more important to have a precise timetable. The services section of the ministerial declaration was not a
matter of controversy at Doha. So we look forward to engaging, from next year, in a serious and detailed negotiation."

WTO Director-General Mike Moore said Nov. 19 that the delay in entering the
request-offer phase of the services negotiations was aimed at ensuring some symmetry between services and other sectors. "We don't want any one area to get too far ahead," Moore said.

What does this mean to us?

The failure of the WTO summit (Qatar was definitly a failure, they achieved almost nothing) is that the participating states didn`t agree about most items and than decided to extend the timetable. The danger for us doesn`t get smaller for us but the possibillities to resist against neo-liberal globalisation are getting bigger. The privatisation of public services like for instance water and education has ofcourse already started but we might stop these developments. The GATS-treaty will take care that the situation will escalate so we have to stop it! It gave us a lot of hope when we heard that students are on strike against privatisation in South Korea, Argentina, Brasil and Nicaragua. An studentunion from Uruguay contacted us and they want to work together with European students. They also have created a Latin-American Network against the neo-liberal politics. We have are also in contact with students from Canada, the U.S.A. and Australia. This ofcourse means that we can think about actions and a network against the privatisation of education and GATS on a larger than, EU, scale on the meeting in Brussels.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)