The services being discussed include health, water, transport, broadcasting and other public services. The proposed agreement would also restrict the ability of governments to regulate key sectors including financial, energy and telecommunications, according to PSI.

PSI organised protests against the negotiations at the end of April, with actions in counties across the globe. Its general secretary Rosa Pavanelli said the talks aimed to “secretly extend” the worst of the GATS agreement. “The aim of public services should not be to make profits for large multinational corporations.  Ensuring that failed privatisations can never be reversed is free market ideology gone mad,” she said.

Jan Willem Goudrian, deputy general secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions said the agreement would bind future governments, regardless of who wins elections and what the courts say. “If the European Commission has nothing to hide they must immediately release full details of these negotiations,” he said.