During spring 2003 the negotiations concerning the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) move into a more intensive phase. Many people think that trade has no link to education policies. Developments related to GATS prove that this is a false assumption - education policy in the future maybe increasingly linked to trade policies. This article outlines some thoughts on the likely effects of GATS on the education systems in Europe. The main risks for the future are: - that governments will use GATS as an excuse for deregulation and privatisation within the education sector; - that the protection said to be provided in GATS for services provided under government authority is ambiguous at best and open to interpretation by Trade Dispute Panels. - education will become part of general negotiation game where governments may have to open up the education market in their own countries in order to get access to other markets; and - education policies will increasingly be decided by trade ministers instead of education ministers. Even if the EU now, on behalf of all member states, has declared that they do not intend to negotiate on further liberalisation in trade on education, this does not mean that the issue will not come back and it does not prevent governments from taking other measures to privatise education.