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:

Great  news from Barcelona! For the first time, a large majority of the Barcelona City Council supports ending the private management of water in the city. Barcelona En Comú believes that water is a human right, a basic service and a common good that should be under public, democratic control. Barcelona En Comú’s motion to remunicipalize the city’s water service has been supported by an absolute majority of the City Council

On Friday, November 25th, Barcelona En Comu presented a motion to take back direct public management of the water cycle, one of the main promises of our manifesto. This proposal was also one of the most popular among citizens in the participatory process carried out to define the Municipal Action Plan (the plan that guides city policy).

All the leftist groups of the Barcelona City Council voted in favor of the motion, meaning that the government can move forward with its plan to remunicipalize the water service in the metropolitan area. The water service is currently in the hands of the mixed society that controls distribution in the 23 municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), of which Agbar is the majority shareholder. The council also approved a similar motion by the CUP Barcelona.

Eloi Badia, Councilor for Presidency, Water and Energy, said that “today an absolute majority has voted more transparency, higher service quality, and lower tariffs. Today is a historic moment because a majority of the council has said that things must change.”

Savings for the city and savings for citizens

According to data from the Court of Auditors, public management is 18% cheaper and results in losses that are 23% lower and investments that are 18% higher. A comparison of water tariffs in Catalan municipalities indicates that private management is 25% more expensive than public management.

These savings would obviously mean a reduction in tariffs. Badia has said that water bills could be reduced by at least 10%, 38.7 million euros in total. 29M € could be saved from industry profits and 9.7M € from the knowledge levy. “The best social rate is one that does not include unnecessary expenses. We must respond to neighbors who can not face bills that have risen 85% in the last 10 years,” he added.

This process is based on precedents in large cities such as Paris, Berlin and Naples that have demonstrated the advantages of having a service under 100% public management, as well as in Catalan towns such as Arenys de Munt and Montornès del Vallès.

This is the beginning of a path that can be long and complex. Barcelona En Comú will continue to work for public services and the common good of all citizens.

Introduction

Cities, regions and countries worldwide are increasingly choosing to close the book on water privatisation and to “remunicipalise” services by taking back public control over water and sanitation management. In many cases, this is a response to the false promises of private operators and their failure to put the needs of communities before profit.

This paper looks at the growing remunicipalisation of water supply and sanitation services as an emerging global trend and presents the most complete overview of cases so far. Major cities that have remunicipalised include Accra (Ghana), Berlin (Germany), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Budapest (Hungary), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), La Paz (Bolivia), Maputo (Mozambique), and Paris (France). By contrast, in this same period there have been very few cases of privatisation in the world’s large cities: for example Nagpur (India), which has seen great opposition and criticism, and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).

Despite more than three decades of relentless promotion of privatisation and public-private partnerships (PPPs) by international financial institutions and national governments,it now appears that water remunicipalisation is a policy option that is here to stay. Direct experience with common problems of private water management – from lack of infrastructure investments, to tariff hikes to environmental hazards – has persuaded communities and policy makers that the public sector is better placed to provide quality services to citizens and promote the human right to water.

Remunicipalisation refers to the return of previously privatised water supply and sanitation services to local authorities or to public control more broadly speaking. This typically occurs after the termination of private contracts by local governments or their non-renewal, but the process is not always (or only) on a municipal scale. Regional and national authorities have considerable influence over services funding and policy, and in some cases act directly as water operators, so the process unfolds within this broader context.

Whatever its form and scale, remunicipalisation is generally a collective reaction against the unsustainability of water privatisation and PPPs. Because of the unpopularity of privatisation, private water companies have used their marketing propaganda to encourage people to believe that concessions, lease contracts and other PPPs are quite distinct from privatisation; they are not. In fact, all these terms refer to the transfer of services management control to the private sector. Policy makers must be aware of the high costs and risks of water privatisation, and as such they have a lot to learn from the experiences of public authorities who have chosen remunicipalisation and are working to develop democratically accountable and effective public water operations.

Published by Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), Multinational Observatory and Transnational Institute (TNI).

Here is the research

– Nice
In 2013, the city of Nice in southern France decided to end its contract with private provider Veolia and take over the management of its water service. This was significant and surprising because the city is headed by a conservative, business-friendly mayor. Remunicipalisation was identified as the best option to harmonise the level and price of the water service within the newly created inter-communal body for the greater Nice urban area.

– Rennes
In 2013, Rennes was one of many French cities that decided to remunicipalise its water service. In Rennes, the service had been managed by Veolia for more than 120 years and this decision was the result of a long battle by the local civil society, which had to overcome the strong political relationship between the private operator and local officials that had existed in spite of Veolia’s appalling record. Water remunicipalisation in Rennes was also marred by controversy over the legal form chosen for the new public water system. Many people see the current system as evidence of an insincere and incomplete de-privatisation.

– Maputo and the cities of Beira, Nampula, Quelimane and Pemba, Mozambique
In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Mozambique privatized state-owned utilities and water management. In 1999, after competitive bidding, the government entered into a public-private partnership (PPP). It signed a hybrid lease/ management contract with Aguas de Mozambique (AdeM) for the water utilities of the capital, Maputo, and the four major provincial cities of Beira, Nampula, Quelimane and Pemba, which are spread throughout the country. This partnership was not a success. The four cities had a five-year management contract, which, after a four-year extension, expired in 2008. From then on, only Maputo was under private management. Yet Maputo’s 15-year contract came to an early end in 2010 when the government, through the asset holding company Fundo de investimento e Património do Abastecimento de Água (FIPAG), bought 73 per cent of AdeM shares, which, until then, had been owned by Aguas de Portugal (AdP). Because private investments in the water sector were problematic, Mozambique centralized the water management through FIPAG, thereby effectively ending the decade long PPP.

– White Rock
The municipality of White Rock has expressed interest in buying the water utility, which is owned by the Edmonton based corporation Epcor. The city council voted anonymously in favour of municipalisation, however a referendum will not be held before the end of 2014. If the referendum shows that citizens are in favour, the mayor has said the municipality will buy the water utility at the beginning of 2015.

Comitato Acqua Pubblica Napoli: “Hands off ABC Napoli!”

In January this year, the transformation of ARIN S.p.a[1] into ABC Napoli[2] was concluded, ending a cycle of struggles which started 10 years ago, when the resolution of 23 November, 2004 allowed the private sector to manage the integrated water services of the entire ATO2 district in Southern Italy (comprising 136 communes from the provinces of Naples and Caserta in the Campania region).

The committees of Naples and Caserta, the public water committees together with a widespread citizen movement fought and obtained the withdrawal of the resolution. Since then we have repeatedly asked the Municipal Administration of Naples to start the transformation of the corporation into a special public company in order to eliminate the pursuit of profit and the potential sale of ARIN shares to the private. What the former Municipal Council under Mayor Iervolino and Budget Councilor Realfonzo were unable to achieve after the referendum victory, now became possible and the present Council (Mayor De Magistris and Branch Councilor Lucarelli) put in place the transformation. Naples is the first city in Italy to have re-municipalized its water service.

This transformation stimulated such enthusiasm and expectation for change that a number of Italian cities, urged by by their own committees, started to plan their course towards re-municipalization.

To give a boost to this commitment to change, we suggested that the Municipal Administration should co-organize a convention of Mayors, Administrations and committees in Naples. If the city of Naples succeeded in re-municipalizing, re-municipalization is possible and, mostly, necessary.

Preparations for the convention, postponed from March to April, began in a shilly-shallying atmosphere and we started to understand that things were not moving in the right direction. Moreover, the February elections had weakened the political position of the Mayor and of his majority. It had also led to the “broad agreements” government summoned by Napolitano. This government is for the privatization of public services, in concordance with the Troika (IMF, ECB, European Commission), a framework that threatens the very existence of ABC Napoli. At the Convention on 24 April, we drew attention to the upcoming difficulties and reiterated with conviction that we here to fight. Hands off ABC Napoli!

We asked and continue to ask the Municipal Administration to “secure” the position of ABC Napoli by attending to many unresolved problems:

Relations with the ATO district (now under supervision but retaining full powers[3])

• Industrial plan
• Past management evaluation
• Economical and tarification plan
• Incomplete board of directors

Over the past months we have pressed the City Council, but with poor results; members were either ambiguous, minimizing or denying. Obviously, relations with the City Council were interrupted. The recent events relative to the increase in tariffs (in Italy, Naples’ Administration was very quick to approve the AEEG[4] – Electric Energy and Gas Authority directives instead of arguing against them) and the Regional Bill designed to encourage SII (Integrated Water Service) privatization is seriously jeopardizing the fate ABC Napoli. While it is impossible to fully grasp the politics that are developing around the SII management in Campania right now, there is one thing that is absolutely certain: we will do everything in our power to fight this Bill.

Hands off ABC Napoli!

Comitato Acqua Pubblica Napoli

[1] ARIN (Azienda Risorse Idriche di Napoli – Water Resources Company of Naples) S.p.a was a corporation responsible for water management in Naples. The S.p.a (società per azioni) is the Italian equivalent of the public limited companies.

[2] ABC Napoli is a spécial public company (azienda spéciale) which is the italian équivalent of a public institution of industrial and commercial nature. ABC for “Acqua Bene Comune” which in English is “Water as a Commons”.

[3] The ATO (Ambito Territoriale Ottimale) is now chaired by a representative of the government and not by the mayor of the largest municipality. The ATO continues to decide the price of water to be applied in all municipalities.

[4] AEEG (Autorità per l’Energia Elettrica e il Gas – the Authority for Electricy and Gas) is the agency responsible for the regulation of competition and pricing in the field of electricity and gas. The AEEG adopted a new method of pricing water services which is against the referendum result of June 2011.

Berlin Water back in Public Hands – Bye, bye Veolia!

[box] Last Tuesday, Veolia and Berlin’s local government announced Veolia’s withdraw from Berlin’s Water Company. Even though German activists are excited for the fact that water services are again 100% under local authorities’ control (since RWE has already been withdrawn), they have to deal with the ‘painful’ cost of the contract breaking. Veolia’s contract was to expire by 2028 and the previous similar breaking of RWE’s has cost 650 million. A lesson to follow from Berliners to Greeks. In order to avoid being in the same difficult situation in the future, privatization should now be avoided. Because by the time that Greek citizens will face the consequences of privatization and shall wish to reclaim the water of Athens and Thessaloniki, they will be obliged to pay for the services in multiplied overestimated prices.[/box]

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https://berliner-wassertisch.net

Realizing the re- municipalization of BWB by consensus

According to information from Berlin – Brandenburg Radio, there is now the possibility for the state of Berlin to buy once again the whole of the water services. According to the Federal Minister of Finance Mr Nussbaum, Veolia wants to sell all of its shares.

BerlinerWassertisch explains:

The total remunicipalization of Berlin’s water services is Berliner Wassertisch’s aim since 2006. We need this in order to create the urgent need of financial and ecological reorganization of the water services. – Water prices should be set as fees, which means that this allows to cover the current expenses and the necessary investments only. The profits are not supposed to lay in the water prices.

– The intake of drinking water and wastewater elaboration should be according to the strict criteria of the European Framework Directive on Water should not contravene other policy objectives of environmental protection, such as maintaining and improving the ecological balance. This would require significant investments.

– Berliners consumers should at last have the right to voice in the management of water services. Transparency and democracy should be introduced in BWB. – From these it is obvious that the return of shares of Veolia should be followed by the principle of strict savings. It would be devastating for the future remunicipalization projects throughout Germany, if the Federal Senate gilds Veolia retreat, as happened with RWE.
We urge the Federal Senate to realize the remunicipalization of BWB, discuss with Berliner Wassertisch, trade unions, tenants and residents associations and other representative groups and eventually achieve a consensus.

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