"Arretons Le GATS"

GATS stands for the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, a regime that would subordinate democratic governance in countries throughout the world to global trade rules established and enforced by the WTO as the supreme body of global economic governance. Since the year 2000, negotiations around GATS are taking place behind closed doors based on collusion with global corporations and their extensive lobbying machinery.

The GATS covers every service imaginable - including public services - regarding in sectors that affect the environment, culture, natural resources, drinking water, health care, education, social security, transportation services, postal delivery and a variety of municipal services.

The chief beneficiaries of GATS are corporate service providers determined to expand their global commercial reach and to turn public services into private markets all over the world. Not only are the services industries the fastest growing sector of the new global economy, but also health, education and water are shaping up to be the most lucrative of all "services." Health care is considered to be a 3.5 trillion dollar market worldwide, while education is targeted as a 2 trillion and water a 1 trillion dollar annual market.