Members of many different organisations, scientific institutions and unions from all over Greece visited Brussels in the past two days and participated in the successful event about the future of water in Europe together representatives of movements from Ireland and Portugal, scientists and members of the European Water Movement such as Food and Water Europe and European Public Services Union.

One by one, the speakers who took the floor described the ongoing issues in their countries and as it was highlighted in the conclusions it became clear that the common denominator in all cases was the lack of actions from the European Commission’s side to answer positively to the demands of European citizens for the legislation of human right to water and sanitation, the halt to the pressure to privatize water and the protection of the resource from commodification. Special mention was made to the fact that the norm in water management is the public administration in a percentage of 90% globally while even the countries who privatized in the previous decades are now remunicipalising with an accelerated pace for the last 15 years.

You can watch all interventions in video. From Greece, three MEPs were present. Those were Mr Papadimoulis and Mr Kouloglou from SYRIZA (who however were not present at the time when the Greek case was discussed) and Mr Grammatikakis from Potami.

The day after the event an informal work group meeting was organized and a resolution has been adopted. The meeting was followed by a press conference. The speakers at the press conference were the organizer MEP Sakorafa (Greece), MEPs Lynn Boylan (Ireland), Stefan Eck (Germany), Joao Pimenta Lopez (Portugal) and unionists and activists from Greece: Mr Giorgos Sinioris , President of EYDAP Union (representing in the panel Unions of Athens, Mr Arhontopoulos President of the Emloyess Union of Thessaloniki and Mr Dragolas President of the Federation of Unions of the Municipal Water Companies of the periphery, Dr Kaklis, Professor of Hydrogeology from the Association of Greek Geologists, Mrs Kanellopoulou from SGW who read the resolution which was adopted and Mr Lymperis from SEKES – EYDAP.

You can watch the press conference by downloading this file to your computer.

Here follows the transcript of the intervention of Mrs Kanellopoulou from SGW in english:

“Much has been said the past months about the existential crisis of Europe and the rise of Euroscepticism. In fact our previous rendevouz in the European Parliament to discuss the future of the water services was annulled because of an emergency plenary on Brexit. Much is said yet little is being done as those with power and those without concur on the spreading of the so called democratic deficit in decision making and yet stay inert as if it is an unstoppable natural phenomenon like a tsunami.

We can all understand why this inertia trends and what a shipreck lies ahead.  
Nonetheless, for the time being most of us are on the EU deck drinking our cocktails while democracy, the Rule of Law and the fundamentals of the social contract which are essential for stability and prosperity in societies are diminished and distorted. Most do not seem to care about the iceberg ahead.

We count ourselves on the exceptions. As water activists we tend to be careful with icebergs and let me tell you about the big one we are facing since 2011 in our struggle to stop water privatization in Greece which has miraculously appeared as a clause and condition inscribed and carved repeatedly in the country’s loan agreements with its creditors.

Together with a lot of other activists, unions and organizations, we have run a successful campaign. We convinced with concrete arguments the vast majority of our co-citizens as the referendum of Thessaloniki proved and now Greeks, like Italians in the past, like Parisians and Berliners are contrary to this policy almost unanimously.

We have presented in many occasions in Greece and abroad the rational argumentation behind our position. EYDAP and EYATH servicing roughly 5 million and 1 million people respectively, have already one of the cheapest tariffs per cubic meter in Europe, they are profitable even during the crisis and have a lot of ongoing developmental projects, some of them subsidized by the EU. In our perplexed globalized world nothing is perfect, but in comparison to their titanic rivals of the private sector, the Greek water companies seem like little tidy houses in a landfill of debt and risk.

We’ve also worked hard at EU level by building alliances and pressure and of course we participated in the right2water campaign succeeding in doubling the signatories’ threshold.

Most importantly we won a favorable Supreme Court decision prohibiting the sell –off of more than 50% of the stocks of the water companies. Resting on this decision, we were hoping that the case was closed and that the pride of western civilization its democratic institutions were still standing!

To our ire, we discovered that Mr Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister who has been till 2015 one of the most vocal supporters of the ECI right2water and a declared adversary of water privatization has somehow been convinced? to proceed with the following:

First his government has accepted to adopt the infamous asset development plan of 19 privatizations which is a binding part of the third memorandum. In this plan there is a provision to proceed with an unnecessary and against the public interest sell of 11% of EYDAP, the Athens water company and 23% of EYATH in Thessaloniki and there is also a scandalous provision for a capital return of 40 million euros from EYDAP’s cashiers to the stakeholders in an unprecedented mingling in a stock market company’s internal affairs. This 40 million on top of another 20 already returned in the form of dividends and the loss of 17 million in the form of an investment in Attica Bank has emptied the cashiers by 77 million and has resulted in putting to risk the economic health of the water service of 5 million people.

As if this was not enough, Mr Tsipras has mysteriously agreed to include both companies to the new Privatization Superfund which by its statute is an entity that does not belong to the public sector and whose Supervisory Board is controlled by the creditors. M. Jacques Le Pap, a French bureaucrat and former collaborator of Christine Lagarde in the French Ministry of Finance is now head of this board. There is not time to guide you through all the details of this new monster privatization fund which controls most of the remaining assets of the Greek State, you can read these in this documentation leaflet we have prepped but trust me when I say that in reality not only the cashiers of EYDAP where emptied but both companies now have had their management privatized in violation of the Supreme Court Decision. On top, the water services are being instrumentalised against their utility statute and are to become golden egg gooses to serve the new Fund’s scope.

Of course, we were never naïve. We know very well, what the lobbyists are doing behind closed doors all these years and why the giants of the private sector want to get their hands on the Greek people’s property. I will not lose my time to criticize their business practices. Businesses are businesses and they can be judged only as such.

The real culprits of the failure of the institutions I am talking about, are, I am afraid others, residing not far from us.

The time for hide and seek is over. We will not tolerate any longer the Commission and other European Institutions playing Schrodinger’s cat, supporting and not supporting privatization, in negotiations behind closed doors. We demand to know how the water services ended up as part of the third memorandum deal in violation of the article 345 of the EU Treaty. We are entitled to know under the Aarhus Regulation and the Transparency Regulation and we will not stop our struggle unless the water services get out of any kind of deals between the Greek Government and its creditors.

With this official document that we will also share in the press conference tomorrow we ask the European Council to disclose all relevant information and we want your support to pressure them for an answer.

Whatever is the answer, It is not the answer that makes us believe the man, but the man the answer to paraphrase the ancient tragic dramatist Aeschylus.
Even if this is presented as the Greek government’ s sovereign decision how are we to be convinced that there is anything sovereign about a government who has signed that it will not legislate anything without the consent of its creditors? And most importantly who is to be held accountable about the misery, poverty, and loss of civil and human rights in Greece? Who on earth are the true culprits and why don’t they come forth and take the responsibility of their actions?

We will do everything in our power together with our friends in the European Water Movement in Berlin, Paris, Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain to secure for our co-citizens their right to water. We will not tolerate those who establish institutions of direct democracy and then turn them obsolete by their own lack of actions. We are not going to pretend that there are still democratic procedures by participating in written monologues about best practices in drinking water when the huge iceberg of turning a deaf ear to the citizen’s will and their successful struggles in all Europe stands huge in our EU course.

To legislate the human right to water, to stop the liberalization of water services in EU treaties and trade deals, to stop demanding from indebted countries to surrender their profitable water services as a prerequisite in austerity programs is the right thing to do. And it is such because it is the expressed will of the peoples of Europe. The iceberg will melt under the unified warmth of our hearts and efforts because If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions, as Noam Chomsky wisely cautions.

Thank you”

NOTE: SGW wishes to thank publicly MEP Sakorafa and her staff for the flawless organisation of the event and the full freedom of actions and speech at the time of the preparation and during our visit which recognises in practice the repeatly expressed political independence of our Initiative.

Photos form the working group meeting and the Press Conference:

The article that was added to the Constitution is the following:

Article 70a (Right to drinking water)
Everyone has the right to drinking water.
Water sources are public good managed by the state.
Water resources serve primarily as the sustainable supply of drinking water and water for households and in this part are not treated as a commodity that can be traded with.
Drinking water supplied to the public and to households is provided by the state through local communities direct and non-profit.

“From the 30th January 2016 to 11th March, we have collected a list of more than 51,000 signatures in support of having the inalienable right to water written into the Constitution. We handed this list to the National Assembly on 11th March. Our Citizens initiative therefore has to this date the backing of almost 3 percent of the voting population. Even after handing in the petition signatures, we have continued our efforts by working on a positive pressure and discussing the matter with water and legal professionals. We have also engaged public authorities covering the area of water, political parties and representatives of citizen initiatives in an open discussion. The objective of our actions was to be clearly written into the Constitution that water and water land is a natural public good, over which no-one can acquire ownership rights; that everyone has the right to drinking water; that the water supply of the population cannot be owned by private companies in any legal-formal way, and that the provision of the water supply to the public is a service which should not generate profit and that the water supply of the population has the absolute precedence over economic exploitation in the case of the water crisis or drought or other crises, and that the water resources be managed sustainably, with thoughts on our posterity.By written down unalienable right to drinking water into the Constitution we are thinking about the future in the present, we will show Europe and the world that Slovenian drinking water is a public good that cannot and will not be privatized and should permanently and primarily be used to supply the population (and animals) and only after that for economic purposes in Slovenia and export purposes, provided the water supply allows for it” writes the announcement by the activists of “Civil initiative For Slovenia and freedom, Water into the Constitution, water into the conscience”

Last night the Parliament held the voting. With 64 votes in favour and none against, the 90-seat parliament added an article to the EU country’s constitution saying “everyone has the right to drinkable water”. The centre-right opposition Slovenian Democratic party (SDS) abstained from the vote saying the amendment was not necessary and only aimed at increasing public support. Slovenia is a mountainous, water-rich country with more than half its territory covered by forest. “Water resources represent a public good that is managed by the state. Water resources are primary and durably used to supply citizens with potable water and households with water and, in this sense, are not a market commodity,” the article reads.

The centre-left prime minister, Miro Cerar, had urged lawmakers to pass the bill saying the country of two million people should “protect water – the 21st century’s liquid gold – at the highest legal level”. “Slovenian water has very good quality and, because of its value, in the future it will certainly be the target of foreign countries and international corporations’ appetites.“As it will gradually become a more valuable commodity in the future, pressure over it will increase and we must not give in,” Cerar said.

Slovenia is the first European Union country to include the right to water in its constitution, although according to Rampedre (the online Permanent World Report on the Right to Water) 15 other countries across the world had already done so.

Trade Unions and Civil Society Welcome the Introduction of the Human Right to Water into the Constitution of Slovenia

Joint Press Release by EPSU, Food & Water Europe and European Water Movement*:

Last night the National Assembly of Slovenia passed an amendment to its Constitution to include a new article that recognizes the Human Right to Water. The amendment affirms water should be treated as a public good managed by the state, not as a commodity, and that drinking water must be supplied by the public sector in a non-for-profit basis. It is a great success for Slovenian activists and people.

“Citizens from across the EU and Europe have successfully mobilized to have the right to water and sanitation recognized as a human right – as decided by the United Nations – and have this put into EU law. The European Commission continues to ignore nearly two million voices of the first ever successful European Citizens Initiative. Commissioner Vella should listen to citizens and follow the Slovenian example as soon as possible,” said Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU General Secretary.

Water is a controversial topic in Slovenia, as foreign companies from the food and beverage industry are buying rights to a large amount of local water resources. The Slovenian government has raised concerns about the impacts of free trade agreements like CETA in its capacity to control and regulate these resources [1].

“Trade agreements and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms can limit the ability of states to take back public control over water resources when foreign investors are involved, as it is the case in Slovenia. To guarantee the right to water and the control over this key resource, the European and the Slovenian Parliaments should reject CETA when it comes to a vote in the coming months,” said David Sánchez, Director of Food & Water Europe.

The amendment is the result of a citizens’ initiative that collected 51.000 signatures to propose a constitutional amendment [2].

“We welcome the introduction of the human right to water in the Slovenian constitution, as the great result of a citizens’ initiative. Now civil society should be vigilant to guarantee a democratic and transparent management of the integrated water cycle founded in the participation of citizens and workers,” said Jutta Schütz, speakperson at the European Water Movement.

• SAVEGREEKWATER is a member of the European Water Movement since 2012.

——

Notes

[1] The Slovenian government raised concerns about the ambiguity of terms like “commercial use of a water source” in CETA, how the agreement applies to existing water rights and the future ability of national governments to put limits on concessions already granted without being subject to claim under ICS, among others. The document can be found here
https://europeanwater.org/images/pdf/Slovenia-questions-on-Water_14-9-2016.pdf

[2] More information about this citizen’s initiative can be found at their website
https://voda.svoboda.si/

Contact:

Jutta Schütz, Speakperson, European Water Movement, +49 (0) 157 390 808 39 (mobile), juttaschuetz(at)gmx.de

David Sánchez, Director, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045 (land), +32 (0) 485 842 604 (mobile), dsanchez(at)fweurope.org

Guillaume Durivaux, Policy officer, EPSU, +32 (0) 22501041, gdurivaux(at)epsu.org

PDF file of this press release
European Public Service Union – Food & Water Europe – European Water Movement

During the secret negotiations of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada (known as CETA), the European Commission always maintained that water would be excluded from the treaty, and that the choice on how to manage Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) related to water (production and distribution of drinking water and sanitation, among others) by the public authorities would not be questioned. But a careful reading of the final text of CETA shows that the reality is different.

Food & Water Europe and the European Water Movement are really concerned about the impact CETA could have in water as a natural resource and in public water management. When one of the key controversies regarding this treaty are its impact on public services, we want to put on the table an analysis of its potential impacts on water, with the hope that it can be useful for activists around Europe campaigning to stop CETA.

The European Citizens Initiative on the Right to Water has been one of the most successful movements in Europe in the last few years. There is a lot of awareness raised about the importance of taking water back to public control, democratizing water management and that water should be a commons, not a commodity. We are sure we can build on that energy to help defeating CETA and other trade agreements, as one of the biggest threats we have seen of water commodification and privatization.

1. Are water and water services included in the treaty?

Yes, in article 1.9, “Rights and Obligations Relating to Water”. The article, written in fuzzy legal terms, states “water in its natural state […] is not a good or a product […] Therefore, only Chapters Twenty-Two (Trade and Sustainable Development) and Twenty-Four (Trade and Environment) apply to such water.” The problem is that almost all water uses (drinking water, sanitation or agricultural irrigation) involve water extracted from its natural environment. It could, therefore, be considered as a good and a product, and could be treated as a commodity and therefore subject to CETA.

The article adds: “Where a Party permits the commercial use of a specific water source, it shall do so in a manner consistent with the Agreement” without clearly defining what is a “commercial use” for water or a “specific water source”, which might open the door to further water commodification for example by influencing how water rights are granted by the authorities. Under CETA, water rights can be turned into “investment” (see question 8).

2. Can CETA increase the pressure to privatize water management?

It could in the case of drinking water provision, and it would definitely do for sanitation.

CETA is the first free trade agreement negotiated by the European Union that includes a negative listing approach to protect public services. Under this approach, everything that is not listed is affected by the treaty (this is known as “list it or lose it”). There are two annexes where you can list exemptions: Annex I, for measures (laws or administrative practices) that violate obligations of the treaty, and Annex II, to include existing and future measures.

Regarding drinking water services, the EU took reservations on “Market Access” and “National Treatment” for “Collection, purification and distribution of water” services, as indicated in Annex II, “Reservations for Future Measures”.

However, only four reservations together: “Market Access”, “National Treatment”, “Most Favoured Nation” and “Performance Requirements” can guarantee that a service will be excluded from CETA’s mechanisms in all cases. For example, the last services proposal from the EU in TTIP[1] includes reservations on “National Treatment”, “Most Favoured-Nation”, “Performance Requirements” and “Senior Management and Board of Directors” for “Collection, purification and distribution of water”. We see no reason why these reservations are needed with the US, but not with Canada.

Also, it should be noted that even if drinking water services are included in Annex II reservations, investment protection applies to them[2].

Regarding sanitation, only Germany can apply a “Market Access” reservation for the services of “Sewage, refuse disposal, and sanitation.” That would imply the inclusion of those services under the CETA framework for the rest of the EU member states, in contradiction with Article 12 of the EU Concessions Directive, which lay down that the Directive shall not apply to concessions awarded to the disposal or treatment of sewage[3].

3. Are water services protected by the horizontal “Public utilities exemption” as claimed by the European Commission?

According to a study commissioned by the European Public Services Union and the Austrian Chamber of Labour[4], there are several challenges in this clause, one of the most important instruments of the EU in the context of trade agreements.

• The model of protection applied by the EU doesn’t include investment protection.
• Terminology is quite ambiguous. Terms like “public utilities” have no specific meaning in international law, and no equivalent term in EU law.

Also, the Public Utilities Clause only protects from “market access” but not from “national treatment”. So foreign companies with subsidiary in Canada must be granted all the rights that domestic companies have as soon as they have a subsidiary in the EU Member state.

The European Commission claims that this model offered “20 years of protection that works”. And it is correct to state that so far trade agreements have not formally prevented Member states from providing public services, like water.

But, following the conclusions of Professor Krajewski, we cannot ignore the regulatory chill effect of these agreements, as governments, when engaging in policy reforms for public services may take their trade obligations into consideration. Also, the fact that there have not been disputes filed in this area doesn’t mean that they won’t happen in the future, as this model has never been put to a real test. This model works since the GATS agreement in 1995, and since then, the EU has signed trade agreements with developing countries and emerging markets (Mexico, Chile, South Korea, Peru…). None of them were significant commercial suppliers of public services with a market access interest in the EU. This is not the case with Canada, and won’t be the case with the US for TTIP.

For sanitation (sewage treatment), there is only a German reservation and the general “Public Utilities Clause” which mentions environmental services, which contain sewage treatment. The question is what happens in this contradictory case where there is a general protection under the “Public Utilities Clause”, while there is a sector-specific liberalisation of the sector “environmental services”. Usually special law is regarded as stronger than the general law.

The German Association of Public Water Operators still find another loophole that could impact both drinking water and sanitation services, as this would be the first time this “Public Utilities” clause would be put in the framework of a negative list agreement.[5]

4. Can CETA be a problem for public authorities to return water management of water and sanitation services into public control?

Yes, with three main concerns, regulatory cooperation, the ratchet effect and investor-state arbitration (known as ISDS or more recently under the name of ICS).

There is a regulatory cooperation mechanism in CETA, and in other free trade agreements. Regulatory cooperation offers a framework for analysis of current and future legislation in terms of their impact on trade and investment. For example, transnational companies could give their negative opinion to any progressive legislative reform that could impact their interests. Linked to the risk of being taken to a private investment tribunal (ISDS/ICS), regulatory cooperation could block the debate and approval of legislation and measures of general interest in the field of public services, human rights and water rights abstraction, and even to weaken current legislation.

Under these free trade agreements, once a sector is liberalised and not listed in Annex II, there is no way back (this is known as ratchet mechanism). Changes are allowed only if they are less restrictive than the measure listed. We have examples of this ratchet effect in other free trade agreements such as NAFTA. Notable is that the European Parliament has rejected such ratchet mechanism in its resolution regarding TiSA[6].

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is one of the most worrying aspects of this latest wave of trade agreements. Under this mechanism, foreign companies can use private tribunals to sue governments if they deem that their profits or investment potentials are being affected by new laws or changes in policy. ISDS gives companies the power to contest — and potentially reverse — government decisions, and to seek compensation, possibly in millions of Euros. Although in the last version of CETA there is a reformed version called ICS, analysis have shown that the worst effects remain the same[7].

Several cases, like the Argentinian ones mentioned in question 5 show how when a public authority take back water management under public control, even after a breach of the contract from the company side, the company can go to private arbitration to get a compensation.

5. Are there ISDS cases so far that affected water and water management?

There are several cases in which public authorities have been taken to private arbitration tribunals by companies for water-related disputes.

Argentina, for example, has lost three cases against international investors when the country sought to take back water companies into public hands. Argentina had to pay $105 million to Vivendi (now Veolia) after authorities terminated Vivendi’s contract to supply water to Tucumán province when the company increased water rates by 104% and failed to invest adequately in the system, resulting in low water quality[8]. Argentina also lost a case against Azurix (an Enron subsidiary) and had to pay the company $165 million when a water workers’ co-operative took over drinking and wastewater services in Buenos Aires Province after the company withdrew from the contract[9]. Argentina lost a third case against Suez, AGBAR and Vivendi after the city of Buenos Aires opted to remunicipalise its water company because of concerns about water quality, lack of wastewater treatment and mounting tariffs[10].

Actually, just a simple disagreement on tariff increases has been reason enough for a company to take a government to court. The private water company in Tallin (Estonia), Tallinna Vesi, brought a claim against the Estonian government using a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). Tallina Vesi is owned by United Utilities, a UK company registered in the Netherlands. They used a bilateral investment treaty between Estonia and The Netherlands to bring a claim against the Estonian government. The company claims that Estonia breached the “fair and equitable treatment” standard of the BIT in refusing to allow the company to increase tariffs, and ask for 90 million for projected total losses over the lifetime of the contract[11].

6. Could CETA be a problem for current public water public companies?

Utility companies, like the Stadtwerke Karlsruhe, a mostly municipally-owned utility company in that German city, consider it could be[12].

According to their analysis, in CETA water rights are generally treated as investments, and would therefore be subject to the investment protection of CETA, which would grant extra rights to foreign investors, unlike investors just operating domestically like Stadwerke Karlsruhe. Problems could start as soon as a foreign investor starts competing for a specific ground water source which is already used by them (a scenario they consider quite realistic). Another potential conflict would be on protection zones, if a foreign investor regarded its own investment inside that zone. Problems might also arise as Stadtwerke Karsruhe needs to follow CETA procurement law, because investment protection in CETA would allow unsuccessful tenderers to invoke extra investment protection standards.

The Association of German Public Water Companies goes beyond[13]. According to their analysis, the reservations applied by the EU to “Collection, purification and distribution of water” don’t cover all their activities, present and future. Because of the negative list approach in CETA, it doesn’t protect their capacity to develop activities like increasing their energy self-sufficiency or recovering and reusing materials inside sewage water. These activities are included under German law as new targets for water provision. Under the framework of CETA, public water operators would need to open these activities to the market and to foreign investors.

This association also complains that the water legislation in the EU and member states has not been listed in annex I, which could mean that current measures and regulations to provide a public water management could be put into question. They also fear that the Public Procurement chapter would limit their ability to work with other municipalities in a cooperative, and not competitive way. CETA’s lack of precautionary principle approach, which is an inherent component in EU law and the cooperatory regulation, which possibly could exert influence on decisions of the parliaments in the EU and EU member states, is another concern regarding health, environment and water resources protection.

7. Main private water companies are European, it this not more a problem for the Canadian side?

Yes, it is a problem for Canadian public water systems. But Canadian and European companies in the water sector are subsidiaries of the same multinational companies (such as Veolia, Nestlé, Suez or Coca-Cola). CETA, or TTIP, would offer these multinationals a great opportunity to get their hands on water and water-related services, to the detriment of people living on both sides of the Atlantic.

CETA would grant special rights to foreign company and investors, but not only from Canada. For example, of the 51,495 US-owned subsidiaries currently operating in EU member states, 41,811 are owned by US parent companies that also have subsidiaries in Canada[14]. Any of these firms could be used as the basis for an ICS case. That could also work the other way, through European-owned companies with subsidiaries in the US or Canada.

A clear example of how ISDS/ICS works beyond any borders is the Estonian case mentioned above, in which a UK company operating in Estonia used its Dutch subsidiary to take the Estonian government into private arbitration using a bilateral investment agreement between the Netherlands and Estonia.

8. Can CETA impact water as a natural resource, and its different uses in agriculture and industry?

There is a shared fear that CETA would further push for a corporate water grabbing in Europe and a further water commodification.

On one hand, article 1.9 states “Where a Party permits the commercial use of a specific water source, it shall do so in a manner consistent with the Agreement” without clearly defining what is a “commercial use” for water or a “specific water source.” If we take into account CETA’s definition of investment on page 39, it includes “Forms that an investment may take include:” (…) “an interest arising from:” (…) “a concession conferred pursuant to the law of a Party or under a contract, including to search for, cultivate, extract or exploit natural resources”.

It is hard to predict consequences of these provisions, but it subjects water rights to CETA trade and investment rules. Especially the extra investment protection standards (“fair and equitable treatment” and “indirect Expropriation”) for foreign investors could have a strong influence on the way water rights are granted by authorities and limit their possibilities to deny water rights once they have been granted to foreign investors. This could open the door to an indirect form of water grabbing. There are several cases of investment protection in other treaties (NAFTA, Energy Charta) where water rights have been issue of an investor-state-dispute. They have resulted in a settlement in favour of the suing company[15].

There are no proper protection for water rights in CETA (understanding by water rights the right to extract or divert water, the right to use water or water taking permits) where there is commercial use. That would heavily impact European agriculture and many industries. Under these conditions there is no other way to read article 1.9 as anything but one additional tool to move towards an increased water commodification.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the European Commission tries to introduce market mechanisms in water policy[16]. For many years they have been pushing for water commodification, through water pricing and water markets. The idea that water rights should become tradable on behalf of economic efficiency is a neoliberal mantra that finds echo in many European institutions[17], and has been experienced in Spain, Australia or California.

Currently it is up to Member States in Europe to allocate water abstraction rights and they do so by different criteria, but not with criteria based on trade and investment that can be found in free trade agreements. But if water rights are tradable, regulation over this trade falls under CETA. While the State might keep the ownership and manage the allocation, water rights would be freely tradable with no further public intervention beyond, perhaps, a market regulator.

NOTE: The term “concession” in the EU is referring to something much more specific, it is a “services concession” for being allowed to supply a city with water. Water rights are something separate and refer to water resources as such – no matter if for public, non-profit, commercial, private purposes.

——-

[1] European Commission, 2015. Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Services and Investment Offer of the European Union

[2] Krajewski, Markus, 2016. Model Clauses for the Exclusion of Public Services from Trade and Investment Agreements

[3] Directive 2014/23/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the award of concession contracts

[4] Krajewski, op. cit.

[5] Allianz der öffentlichen Wasserwirtschaft e.V., 2016. Wasserwirtschaft im Sog des Freihandels – CETA

[6] European Parliament resolution of 3 February 2016 containing the European Parliament’s recommendations to the Commission on the negotiations for the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)

[7] Several authors, 2016. The Zombie ISDS

[8] Environmental Justice Atlas

Several authors, 2007. CIADI: Fallo contra el pueblo de Tucumán

[9] Water Remunicipalisation Tracker

[10] Water Remunicipalisation Tracker

[11] International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes

Kishimoto, S., 2015. Trade Agreements and investor protection: A global threat to public water. In Kishimoto, Lobita et Petitjean, 2015. Our Public Water Future. The Global Experience with Remunicipalisation

[12] Stadtwerke Karlsruhe, 2016. How water supply in Germany would be affected by the EU free trade and investment agreements CETA, TTIP, TiSA

[13] Allianz der öffentlichen Wasserwirtschaft (AöW), 2016. Wasserwirtschaft im Sog des Freihandels – CETA (In German)

A French translation, La gestion des ressources en eau dans le sillage du libre échange – CETA

[14] Public Citizen. Tens of Thousands of U.S. Firms Would Obtain New Powers to Launch Investor-State Attacks Against European Policies via CETA and TTIP

[15] Stadtwerke Karlsruhe, 2016, op. cit.

[16] European Water Movement, 2012. Commission’s Blueprint Puts Water and Nature Up For Sale

[17] See for example the seminar Water Market Scenarios for Europe: A response to Water

• The control of the services which are transferred in their entirety to the Superfund is now in the hands of an organization which is not pubic, according to its founding provisions.(1)
• The Greek governments cease to control the management of these services since they give it away to the Supervisory Board of the Superfund which, in practice, is controlled by Greece’s creditors.(2)
• Both major water services cease to have as object the one defined in their statute, meaning the provision of water and sanitation in Athens and Thessaloniki and they are instrumentalized in order to serve a foreign to their object purpose, the purpose of the Superfund.(3)
• The Greek Government has already approved the sell-off of 11% of EYDAP and 23% of EYATH and therefore private investors are going to enter the Board of both companies. If combined with a friendly to their interests management, these new players have the possibility to fully implement their agenda despite the fact that they possess only a minority of the stocks.(4)

For all the aforementioned reasons we announce today that our initiative in collaboration with other interested parties is proceeding according to the provision of the Greek Law to the necessary legal actions in order to annul the transfer of EYDAP and EYATH to the Superfund.

At the same time, we continue our campaign against water privatization so that our fellow citizens stay continuously informed with regard to its devastating consequences.(5)

Finally, on the premise that the EU Commission must stay neutral in the matter of private or public management of the water services, we demand the disclosure and publication of any correspondence or oral discussions’ minutes between the Greek Government and the Institutions regarding the transfer of EYDAP and EYATH to the Superfund.(6)

We would like to remind to everyone that the Greek citizens have repeatedly expressed their will in an official democratic way and in their vast majority stand against water privatization of any sort.(7) There can be no governance based on the Rule of Law which disrespects a country’s Supreme Court and there can be no democratic state which ignores the will of its People.

You can support this struggle by volunteering here.

SAVEGREEKWATER

(1) The two companies are privatized in violation of the Constitution as judged by the Supreme Court decision 1906/2014 as all their assets and subsidiaries are transferred to the Superfund which as it is noted in Art. 184 p4 L4389/2016 “does not belong to the public or broader public sector, in the way that each is defined.”

(2) Management and administration of the two companies will therefore be controlled, in practice, by the creditors, taking into account that: a) the Supervisory Board of the Super Fund consists of 5 members two of which are appointed by the creditors (with the consent of the Minister of Finance) and three from the Greek government (with the consent of the creditors) and that b) between the borrower Greek State and the creditors, there is no equal footing since the latter may impose what they want, as it has been repeatedly demonstrated in the past.We shall point out that the Fund’s Board of Directors (appointed by the Supervisors per art. 192.2a of L. 4389/2016) is entitled, among other issues, to execute contracts including such dealing with the supply and provision of services, as are those offered by EYDAP and EYATh. Per art. 194.8 of same Law the Meetings of the Board as well as the Minutes of such and any relevant documents are to be kept secret, despite the fact that such deal with the administration and/or the alienation of Public Property. Furthermore (per art. 202.2 of same Law) the Fund and all subsidiary companies (with the exception of MSF and HRADF) “…in order to proceed with the privatization of any of their assets (in our case the stock of EYDAP and EYATh) may sell, assign and/or in any other possible way transfer any and all properties and/or contractual or real rights (of EYDAP and EYATh) to any capital stock companies and then transfer their shares to any third person/legal entity”. Art. 202.3 of same Law allows the Fund and its subsidiaries (except MSF and HRADF) “…to lease any asset and assign any right of use as well as the administration of any asset … as they consider expedient”

(3) The two companies cease to be public utility agencies with the objective of providing uninterrupted and quality services of water and sanitation to the citizens of Athens and Thessaloniki. They are instrumentalized in a contradictory to their scope way, since they will become by law simple “assets” in EDHS’ portfolio and will serve the Super- Fund’s “specific scope”, as it is mentioned in article 185 para. 1: “The Company manages and leverages its assets in order to: a) contribute resources to implement the investment policy of the country and to proceed to investments that contribute to the enhancement of the development of the Greek economy and b) contribute to the fulfillment of financial obligations of the Greek Republic under Law 4336/2015 (a 94)”.

(4)Decision no33 of the Govermental Council of Economic Policy (Government Gazette 1472B/2016)

(5) In the last 15 years there have been at least 235 cases of water remunicipalisation in 37 countries, both in the global North and South, including high profile cases in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa.

(6) The agreement between the Greek government and its creditors to include EYDAP and EYATH in the new Super-Fund constituteS by both parties, a scandalous breach of the democratically expressed will of the people as this has been recorded at the Thessaloniki referendum on the 18th of May 2014 (where 98,03% of Thessalonians voted against the privatization of EYATh) but also after the successful completion of the ECI right2water in our country and at European level,  demanding the adoption of the human right to water by the EU and the protection of water services from liberalization. (During the procedure the official signatures by Greek citizens surpassed 32.000, when the threshold was 16.000, while in Europe in overall the signatures were more than 1.800.000, when the threshold for a successful ECI is 1.000.000.

(7)According to regulation EC1049/2001 (30 May 2001) with regard to the public access to documents of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council and Article 255(2) of the EC Treaty, in combination with the Article 345 of TFEU and Article 171 of Directive 2006/123/EC regarding the internal market services which dictates that the European Commission is bound to stay neutral in the matter of public or private management of the water services.

According to the submitted bill, any asset under public control (including the 34% of the stocks that were returned from HRADF to the public sector after the Supreme Court decision 1906/2014) are being privatised and being privatised and become nothing more than “assets” of the new Superfund.

With the end of the voting procedure, we will proceed to the publication of a press release on how we plan to confront this complete violation of the Supreme Court decision which is sopposedly asked by Greece’s creditors and is executed by the government.

Till then, we all support the initatiove of our friends in Thessaloniki and we send automated emails to ALL memebrs of the Greek Parliament asking the exemption of both companies from the list of public assets transfered to the Superfund.

Follow us on facebook and twitter to stay informed continuously till our next post.

To a sad demonstration of the quality of the Rule of Law in our country, this draft is being promoted after the failed and persistent effort of domestic and foreign interests for the immediate and full privatization of water services in Greece and unfortunately results in similar consequences to home and other consumers who are now required to pay newly invented “costs” that bring us all face to face not only with the full commercialization of water services but also with that of our water as a resource.

Of course, this irrational and non-scientific attempt to put a “price tag to nature” by assigning “costs” to the preservation of ecosystems and water resources is not an invention of the Greek ministry but is a consistent pursuit of those multinational companies which use “eco-friendly” rhetoric in order to create an “ecosystems market” and even a “water market”, similar to that of Co2 emissions that we have by now evidenced how little it helped to reduce them.

These interests through their lobbyists have managed to “influence” the European Commission’s decisions and thus with the art. 9 of Directive 2000/60/EC, to which the national law is aligning with the MD in “consultation”, the “Full cost Recovery” term was inserted and it was made a guideline for implementation on all Water Services. Hence, in short, under this principle, the member states, when calculating the tariffs of water, they must take into account (as discussed in the second article of the MD under “consultation”) the financial cost, the environmental cost and the resource cost.

To decode the deception against citizens’ interests it is necessary to refer to the three definitions given to these concepts by its creators

A.The “financial cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of the cost for all projects, infrastructure and processes necessary for services such as water provision, for the uses of Article 2 par. 1 MD. The financial costs include capital costs, operating costs, maintenance costs and management costs.

According to this new definition of financial costs:

1) Consumers are invited to pay once more for infrastructure projects which were paid for decades through a) taxation of generations of Greeks and Europeans (when it comes to infrastructure projects funded by European funds), b) loans that are now part of the unsustainable public debt and c) water bills and fixed fees.

2) They are also asked to pay for non-existent, under construction or shoddy infrastructure projects in regions of the province where in many cases, the competent authorities are unable to provide clean drinking water and sanitation networks do not even exist.

3) They are required to pay the profits of subcontractors who prey on the services sector as it is very clearly stated in Article 4, paragraph 2 bb) since in the definition of the “operating costs” it is included the “cost of concession contracts with third parties”. Just recently such an “innovative” contract was signed by EYDAP which paid a private company to “assess” the existing staff. Such a task was done in-house until today at no “cost” and at any rate it could also be improved in-house if it was necessary.

4) They are required to pay the cost of capital i.e. on the performance of alternative placements (No. 4 par.2.a.av). For example, If a water provider claims that it would earn more if the money given for network maintenance were invested in another activity will we have to pay the “alleged loss of its earnings”? Let us not say naively that water utilities by their constitution have a duty to invest only in infrastructure since only this year EYDAP «invested» € 20,000,000 in Attica Bank. Furthermore, according to the MD consumers must also pay for a secured “reasonable profit” of the private investors in EYATh and EYDAP (Annex 1 a2) without of course quantifying this flexible concept of ‘reasonable’, in a provision of true state “generosity” as if the private investors have any guarantee of profitability when investing in a company in the private sector. This year the dividends that EYDAP distributed were almost 22 million (profits 138 million). But apparently this amount is not “reasonable” and we should all chip in.

B.The “Environmental cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of the deviation of water status from good status which is required for sustainable utilization of the water resources in accordance with the environmental objectives of Article 4 of Decree 51/2007. “

1) Scientific glory awaits any scientist who succeeds in defining the “cost per cubic meter ‘as the MD claims for the misty “rehabilitation works” (shouldn’t we first study what those might be?) to turn “sustainable” an aqueous stock or a water basin. We wait to see how many municipal water companies and how many municipalities served by EYDAP and EYATh will have zero environmental cost charges unless all regions of the country have no “sustainable” water reserves.

2) Even if science succeeds nothing gives us hope that these policies will. In this plan, no specific action is defined nor is it described as mandatory. The money raised from environmental charges will result in the notorious and largely inert “Green Fund” and from there who knows where and when, since there is no time provision for any rehabilitation works and the only reason why the author characterizes the fee as “contributory” is because otherwise it would blatantly violate the constitution.

3) Isn’t the environmental cost a mere revenue raising fee if we take into consideration a region of the country where the aquatic reserve restoration works would skyrocket such a fee if it was calculated precisely?

4) Quite interesting are two of the exemptions from the environmental charges: (a) users who, by applying appropriate management practices, help to maintain and / or improve the good status of water including wastewater reuse and c) regions with geomorphological particularities or extreme climatic conditions. Does this mean that any big enterprise which has political power because of the jobs they “create” and somehow presents evidence of “good management” will be cleared from these charges? Or even, any inventive politician able to characterize his election area as “geomorphologically particular” will he be able to exclude it from the charges?

5) Only outrageous can we characterize one other provision under which consumers are to pay for pollution of water bodies, even if they did not contribute to it (clause d of paragraph 2 of Art. 5 !!!) and even though this damage is never restored? It would be useful here to have an official answer by the Ministry on how many and which of the recorded cases of water pollution have been restored and who paid for it so far.

6) More generally is it logical from the very definition of this fee to allow for such an uneven burden of the citizens who have the misfortune to live in hydrologically deprived areas and have no competence on the water management in the problematic zone?

C. The “resource cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of alternative uses of water” which is necessary if the Water System is used in excess of the rate of its natural replenishment.”

This new cost definition reminds us of Chile. There the large copper operators, who can afford to pay more, use water from local springs and rivers while residents end up drinking desalinated seawater, since only such is available at lower prices. Must we henceforth pay in the form of “resource cost” the difference of profit in order to prevent our water being used in another way which results in greater economic benefit?

A large industrial unit of water bottling for example which uses the ground water beyond the rate of natural replenishment will it just pay the “resource cost” and continue making profit while destroying the aqueous stock? How is this consistent with the assumed target of “rational use”?

Finally it is worth noting that from this new tariff calculation method are excluded all water services for energy use (no. 2 par.2.a of RM) and of course it is obvious why when one takes a look at how the energy sector operates in our country.

It is clear to everyone that the above provisions are aimed at nothing other than to give plausible excuses for increasing the price of water in perpetuity, in a similar manner as the electricity bills were doubled by the notorious “regulated charges”.

The flimsy argument that the price increase will lead to savings and rational use, in a miraculous way, is a gross misrepresentation of the economic reality since the ones with the economic capacity will comfortably continue paying their excessive consumption, while those who are economically weaker will have to measure their water consumption with the water dropper.

It is another form of indirect taxation, which severely threatens the human right to access to water and sanitation as it was defined by the UN.

Finally, the logic of full cost recovery is directly contrary to the nature of a public service, the nature of the water companies in Greece which is still valid and protected by the Constitution. Any profit, beyond a reasonable one for the continuation of the operation of the enterprises, which in favor of the public interest, must be reinvested for the maintenance and improvement of infrastructure and networks, is simply immoral and imposed on us who have no other option to have access to the most fundamental resource.

For all these reasons, we are completely opposed to the conversion of the common good of water to a product and we therefore ask for the complete withdrawal of the document under “consultation”.

SAVEGREEKWATER, Initiative for the non privatization of water in Greece

(Note: this text was sent to the Ministry of Environment and as a press release to the media in Greece)

COSIGNING ORGANIZATIONS

Participatory Unifying Movement of Employees & Retirees ofr a public EYDAP in the service of society

Employees Union EYATH (Thessaloniki Water Company)

Naturefriends Greece

Radical Ecology Network

Citizens’ Initiative for the Abolition of the Superfund of the grabbing of Public Property

SOSte to nero, Coordinating Group of Citizens and Organizations, Thessaloniki

Water Warriors, Thessaloniki

Open Solidarity Comittee  of Tinos island

ECO.POLIS Haidari,Athens

PERI.POL.O. Mani (Enviromental and Cultural Group of Mani)

Athens Initiative for a self organized field at Hellenikon

 Cholargos – Papagos Citizens Network

Article by David Sanchez of Food and Water Europe

Just one year ago we were arguing about how Spain was still resisting the last wave of water privatization, as a result of austerity policies and debt, seasoned with corruption scandals.

But as a result of the local and regional elections a year ago, the tide changed. As a reaction to the long-term crisis, attacks to public services and corruption in traditional parties, many citizen movements organized to run for the elections, with great success in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Ferrol, Santiago, Cádiz, Coruña and Valencia, among others.

One of the key achievements of those movements was to introduce in the public sphere the debate on how to manage public services, like water. By the end of 2015, 57 percent of the population in Spain received their tap water from a private operator. One of the most worrying consequences is that more than 500,000 families receive water cut off warnings every year, according to data from the Spanish public water companies association.

Valladolid, a city of around 300,000 inhabitants and capital of the northwestern region of Castilla y León, took the first big move a few weeks ago. The local government announced that the city would recover public control of water management, 20 years after the privatization of Aguas de Valladolid, when the contract expires in July 2017. Aguas de Valladolid is now part of the AGBAR-Suez group.

The reasons for remunicipalization sound familiar: underinvestment in infrastructure, high tariffs and lack of democratic control over such an important resource, among others. These are the same problems that led more than 200 cities worldwide to take back control of the water systems in the last 15 years.

Remunicipalizing a public service is a complex process. Valladolid will create a public company that will hire the current 150 workers of Aguas de Valladolid so no expertise or jobs are lost. They announced investments of 178 million euros in the coming 15 years to renew the infrastructure. And even doing so, tariffs will increase less than a third compared to the period where management was private.

This is great news for the citizens of Valladolid, but also a strategic milestone for the whole country. Valladolid is the biggest Spanish city to ever carry out such a process, and will surely pave the way for many other cities that have announced similar intentions. At the European level, it is a great symbol of this global trend. Spain is one of the countries most severely hit by austerity and water poverty and an inspiration for the movements still resisting privatization, like citizens in Greece.

Remunicipalization is a huge step, but it is not enough. Public management needs to be transparent, democratic and participatory. It needs to guarantee the human right to water, as well as investments to secure a sustainable supply. It is fundamental to design a sustainable management plan to protect the ecology of natural water cycles and maintain the quality of water in rivers and aquifers. It’s also important for maintaining good working conditions for water company employees, which need to be fully integrated into the democratic decision-making process.

There are many challenges ahead, but no one said that challenging the neoliberal dogma would be easy. Exciting times!

The recommendations of a commission set up to draft the constitutional amendment were approved by 65 votes, with the remaining 25 members either abstaining or not being present. The proposal thus reached the two-thirds necessary to kick of the process of including the right to water in the Constitution.

The text proposed by the Commission, and approved on Tuesday 12 July, states that drinking water ‘should not be treated as a commodity’  and defines drinking water provision as a ‘non-profit public service’.

The wording should protect water services for citizens from any future liberalisation initiated by the European Commission. It marks a big success for the trade unions and NGOs which have campaigned, both in Slovenian and across Europe, for the recognition of water as a human right that must be protected from privatisation.

The Right2Water campaign, initiated by EPSU, became the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative in 2013 when it submitted 1.9 million signatures in favour of guaranteed water and sanitation across Europe and against the liberalisation of water services. Slovenian surpassed the national threshold for signatures several times over. This widespread support for the right to water in Slovenia has now borne fruit with water rights set to be enshrined in the national constitution.

During the secret negotiations of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada (know as CETA), the European Commission always maintained that water would be excluded from the treaty, and that the choice on how to manage Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) related to water (production and distribution of drinking water and sanitation, among others) by the public authorities would not be questioned. But a careful reading of the consolidated text of CETA, released the 26th of September of 2014 shows that the reality is different.

Rights and Obligations Relating to Water

The article “Rights and Obligations Relating to Water” is written in fuzzy legal terms, sometimes even in contradiction with EU and national legislation. No doubt the vagueness and loopholes in this article will facilitate a corporate capture of water by multinational companies in Europe and Canada. The article states that “water in its natural state […] is not a good or a product and therefore […] is not subject to the terms of this Agreement.” But almost all water uses (drinking water, sanitation or agricultural irrigation) involves water extracted from its natural environment. It could, therefore, be considered as a good and a product, and could be treated as a commodity and therefore subject to CETA. The article adds: ” Where a Party permits the commercial use of a specific water source, it shall do so in a manner consistent with the Agreement” without clearly defining what is a “commercial use” for water or a “specific water source.” Currently it is up to Member States in Europe to allocate water abstraction rights and they do so by different criteria, but not with criteria based on trade and investment that can be found in free trade agreements. Under these conditions there is no other way to read this article as anything but one additional tool to move towards an increased water commodification.

Reservations for Future Measures

Annex II on “Reservations for Future Measures” indicates the reservations that the EU or certain Member States may apply for different services. The EU can apply a reserve on “Market Access” and “National Treatment” for “Collection, purification and distribution of water” services. Germany can apply a “Market Access” reservation for the services of “Sewage, refuse disposal, and sanitation.” However, only four reservations together: “Market Access”, “National Treatment”, “Most Favoured Nation” and “Performance Requirements” can guarantee that a service will be excluded from CETA’s mechanisms in all cases. In addition, no other Member State apart from Germany applied for reservations on services “Sewage, refuse disposal, and sanitation” which would imply their inclusion in the CETA framework in contradiction with Article 12 of the Concessions Directive.

Regulatory Cooperation and ISDS

The EU is neutral – in theory but not in practice – on the choice between public or private management of their SGEI. England has chosen a purely private model of water management for SGEIs, while most Member States have chosen to allow both public and private management. Regulatory cooperation, introduced into CETA and also in the free trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States (TTIP), challenges that freedom of choice. Regulatory cooperation allows private companies to be consulted on legislative procedure of the EU or States which affects trade or investment, and to interfere with this procedure if it seems detrimental to their interests. Suppose a state decides to allow only the public management of water-related SGEI. Under a system of regulatory cooperation, private companies can block the legislative procedure. In addition, an arbitration chapter between States and private investors (ISDS) allows a foreign company to challenge in a private arbitration court a public measure when it affects its expected profits. This provision, as introduced in CETA, will apply to water and water-related services as it is already the case in other free trade agreements: Veolia took the Egyptian government to an arbitration court after Egypt increased the minimum wage; in April 2015, Suez got Argentina to pay more than $ 400 million in damages for having reduced the price of water during the severe economic and social crisis of 2001 through the arbitration court of the World Bank.

Ratchet effect and private management of water

The rights and obligations in the water sector, the reserves applied to water-related services and regulatory cooperation as defined in CETA will make it difficult or impossible to return to a public water management once management has been assigned to a private company. We have examples of this ratchet effect in other free trade agreements such as NAFTA: when the bottled-water company Parmalat, which had a permit to abstract water from the source of the Esker (Quebec), went bankrupt the local authorities were not able to recover this water, and the government of Quebec had to grant a new license to an American-Chinese private company.

Canadian and European companies in the water sector are subsidiaries of the same multinational companies (such as Veolia, Nestlé, Suez or Coca-Cola). CETA and TTIP offer these multinationals a great opportunity to get their hands on water and water-related services, to the detriment of people living on both sides of the Atlantic.

European Water Movement

Contact: [email protected]

Read the Press release of the Europarliament after the adoption of the resolution:

Here is the letter

Another week, another victory for big business over a government in a secret pseudo-court. This time it’s the turn of private water giant Suez, who successfully sued Argentina for reversing the privatization of Buenos Aires’s water supply.

No matter that the country was in a state of economic crisis when the nationalization took place, and the government didn’t want water prices to rise by 60%. No matter that the company time and again failed to meet its performance targets. In the world of corporate courts, nothing matters except an investor’s ‘right’ to profit.

Yet it is exactly this system of so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that we will be signing up to if the US-EU trade deal known as TTIP goes ahead. Again and again government ministers tell us there’s nothing to fear. Nothing in TTIP will prevent us running public services in the way we choose.

Try telling that to Argentina, which now ‘owes’ $405 million, according to one such corporate court, this one based in the World Bank, which just happened to also be a shareholder in the Suez-run private water scheme.

The story began when a free market government in Argentina privatized Buenos Aires’s water supply back in 1993, egged on by the World Bank. A 30-year concession was given to a group headed by Suez, which promised to make water access universal and improve the water quality to meet international standards, all while maintaining reasonable tariffs.

From the start, targets were repeatedly not met, while tariffs increased, and the performance indicators were renegotiated. By 2002, average residential tariffs had increased by 88%, while inflation had only increased by 7%. Investment was below what had been promised, debt ballooned, but the profits kept rolling in.

In 2001-2, Argentina went through a dramatic crisis, exacerbated by international lenders like the International Monetary Fund, which caused mass impoverishment. As the country was rebuilt, emergency laws were passed to save Argentina’s people from further deprivation. With the private water company threatening another massive price rise, the government of Nestor Kirchner passed an emergency law to bring the company into public ownership.

Argentina has been hounded by cases like this ever since its economic crisis. That’s because the Argentinian government at the time took serious action to place human rights before corporate interests, telling big business they couldn’t profit from misery. Some of these cases have seen Argentina paying out, others have been resisted, turning into odious debts which hedge funds (known as vultures) use to threaten the country to this day.

This particular case has been brought under a bilateral trade agreement between Argentina and France. But the central mechanism is the same as that which is being proposed under TTIP and a separate treaty which the EU is about to ratify with Canada (known as CETA). These agreements will allow tens of thousands of corporations access to these secret pseudo-courts to take exactly this type of action against European governments.

Argentina has at least 20 more cases like this pending, arising mostly from the government trying to regulate energy and water prices, which is exactly what the Labour Party is promising to do in the upcoming general election.

What’s more, the threat of these corporate courts is having a much wider impact on governments’ willingness to even try to represent their people. Senior barrister Toby Landau says “no state wants to be brought under a treaty to an international process. It has an impact upon diplomatic relations, it may have an impact upon a state’s credit standing… as a practitioner I can tell you that there are states who are now seeking advice from council in advance of promulgating particular policies in order to know whether or not there is a risk of an investor-state claim.” [emphasis added]

The European parliament has a vote on TTIP in June. This case should make absolutely clear to MEPs that the ISDS system must be a red line not to be crossed by any political party that cares about democracy.

On 18 April people across the world will be taking part in more than 550 actions to protest TTIP and other dangerous trade deals. You can find your local action here.