This is what is the article:

 It is well known now that EYDAP and EYATH assets have been and are to be transferred to the Superfund:  accordingly the water of the two major urban centers of the country is in danger of becoming prey in the clutches of “water barons”. Obviously, by controlling water services a greater degree of dependency, impoverishment and actual enslavement of people can be achieved.

But what is exactly happening with the waters in Greece outside the two major urban centres?

Water services in the provinces  are run by municipal enterprises, known by the general acronym DEYA. These enterprises are of contributory, self-funded character and are supervised by the corresponding municipalities of their regions of operations. DEYA enterprises were established in 1980, in order to take responsibility of water supply and sewage in remote regions off the central government; their role in local communities has been proved particularly important. They operated as pillars of the development of the aforementioned regions, by the employment (at an astonishing – 95% – absorption rate) of large funds from European investment programs. They also contributed significantly to the environmental protection, by the installation and operation of 250 wastewater treatment facilities. They are responsible for water supply and sewage of distant, sparsely populated, poor areas, ignoring the cost-benefit balance. They are, also, structures that defend public health by ensuring water supplies of excellent characteristics. Overall, they are local enterprises with a humanitarian attitude, having institutionalized social tariffs for vulnerable groups, thus ensuring for them the right to life. As the type of water management (tariffs – quality – social policy) which the mayors adopt can be a crucial factor for their re-election, there exists always a social control which can enforce democracy to the management.  Finally, they are small or medium sized businesses (132 in total, employing 4500 workers), which provide water and sewage to the most beautiful locations of Greece, by protecting their natural wealth, as well as the largest water reserves in the country.

In the post-memoranda Greece of the last six years, the DEYA enterprises have been devalued, under the pretext of limiting fiscal deficit. Nowadays they are becoming under staffed, sold by the day, piece-by-piece at the same time outsourcing important services to private contractors (as for example water treatment facilities, breakdown recovery services, water consumption measurements services, accounting). Due to this costs rise while the quality of services decays.

What is more important (and dangerous) is that due to recent policies an enterprise can be declared unsustainable if it presents negative balance sheets in three continuous years: in such a case a simple majority of the municipal council suffices for the transfer of the enterprise even without compensation. The question reasonably arises how long will a DEYA be sustainable, when operating exclusively with contractors? Should DEYA stop the water and sewage services to distant, sparsely populated villages, as such services are definitely not profitable? Will the privatization of EYDAP work as a Trojan horse for further privatization of the DEYA enterprises? Of course DEYAs are not financially dependent on the State/Central Government therefore they do not, in any way whatsoever, contribute to the public debt; they are financed by citizens and therefore they belong to them; however they are equally restricted in (actually barred from) recruiting any new personnel, which means that over time their already limited resources will reach zero.

What is not known in urban centers is that, on the pretext of water resources protection, all traditional and modern wells in the province, even handheld pumps of house yards (under the threat of 2000 euro fine) have to be filed with the central authorities. Rainwater storage tanks kept by farmers have been banned. Farmers are mandated to install water meters in line shafts’ sections of their fields.

The imposition of the environmental fee which will apply from 2017 and on (on the pretext of “protection of water resources”),will apply to urban-, rural-, and any other water use that can be priced, therefore be bought and sold, or disposed for a price.

As a conclusion I think we should all realize the dangers looming over the waters of the whole country (urban, rural, water resources) and form a common front of resistance to that. United and determined to oppose global capitals, for which human life has no value.

Because, fighting for water is a struggle for life and democracy.

Stavroula Symeonidou

Board Member of the Pan-hellenic Federation of DEYA Workers

President of the Union of Workers at DEYA of the City of Drama

Introduction: A Human Right to Water and Sanitation Toolkit for Global Water Justice Activists

By Meera Karunananthan

The global water justice movement has distinguished itself from conservationist organizations and traditional human rights advocacy groups by focusing on systemic injustices related to the use, distribution and control of freshwater supplies. Global water justice groups are not only concerned with access to drinking water and sanitation services, but also with the questions of who controls and owns our water, who defines policies related to freshwater and how priorities are determined when it comes to access. They have challenged the ways in which the neoliberal economic model has sought to answer these questions, calling instead for a water justice approach based on common ownership, collective control, equitable access and sustainable use to preserve healthy watersheds for future generations.

Over the past two decades the struggle for water justice has been linked with campaigns for formal recognition of the human right to water and sanitation, which has prompted some debate about the value of human rights instruments in addressing root causes of injustices arising from free-market policies.

This project is an attempt to bridge the gaps between human-rights based campaigns and water justice ethics by demonstrating how human rights campaigns can effectively challenge neoliberal policies pertaining to the control, use and distribution of freshwater. It is the result of discussions between grassroots activists, water justice organizations and legal scholars to provide information that would support the creation of human rights to water and sanitation policies. It is our hope that these policies will empower frontline communities and grassroots groups in their efforts to stop the corporate takeover of water, whether in the form of privatization of water and sanitation services, the use of lakes and rivers as dumpsites for extractive industries, or over-extraction by beverage companies.

Not only does this set of educational tools provide information to support campaigns for universal access to sufficient, safe, affordable, accessible and acceptable drinking water and sanitation services, it recognizes that that the protection of watersheds for future generations, the equitable distribution and democratic control of scarce freshwater supplies and essential services are integral to the achievement of universal access. The resources contained in this toolkit acknowledge and aim to challenge the threats posed by the neoliberal economic model to the full and universal realization of the human rights to water and sanitation.

The resources contained in this guide are drawn from successful local and national campaigns to articulate a vision for the human right to water that will empower local communities to defend their rights to water and sanitation against the growing threats of neoliberalization through austerity measures, development loan conditions, trade agreements and investment treaties.

They include:

1. A Water Justice Vision for the Normative Content and Principles of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation:
   This section draws from international examples and case law to demonstrate how the normative content and principles of the human right to water and sanitation can support campaigns for equitable access, sustainable use and collective control.

2. The Freshwater Commons and the Public Trust Doctrine
   This report explains how an important principle existing within various legal systems can support campaigns to enshrine elements of the human rights to water and sanitation

3. The Uruguayan Model: Protecting the human right to water and sanitation by banning privatization
   Given the growing list of human rights violations resulting from the privatization of water and sanitation services, this portion of the toolkit draws on the Uruguayan example to argue that the human rights to water and sanitation can be codified in a manner that prohibits private sector participation

4. Fighting the Dispossession of Peasants and Rural Communities
   This section draws from key policy initiatives and the local and international level to expand the definition and applications of the human rights to water and sanitation to include access to water for food production, public participation in decision-making and healthy environments through collective control of freshwater supplies, to fight the marginalization of rural communities.

Contributors to the Water Policy module

Meera Karunananthan is the international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project. The Blue Planet Project is an international project that works with communities and organizations around the world to defend the water commons and promote the human rights to water and sanitation. Meera completed a Master’s thesis examining the corporate appropriation of right to water discourse and its impact on public policy and is currently pursuing a PhD in geography at the University of Ottawa.

Luis Francisco López Guzmán is an environmental lawyer with a master’s degree in environmental law. He is a PhD candidate currently working as the Director of Health Regulation and Legislation in the Ministry of Health and is affiliated with the Salvadoran environmental NGO UNES. He previously served as head of the policy team responsible for drafting El Salvador’s General Water Bill, the Legal framework on Continental Waters and Aquifers, the constitutional reform on the Human Right to Water and the Treaty on Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management dealing with transboundary waters shared by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Adriana Marquisio is the Head of the Department of international and national solidarity at Urguay’s public water utility, OSE. As a fourth generation water worker in her family, Adriana Marquisio has worked at OSE since 1984. She is a co-founder of the Uruguayan water justice network (Comisión en Defensa del Agua y la Vida) and a co-founder of the water justice network of the Americas, la Red Vida. She served as Vice-President of the water workers union, FFOSE from 2003 to 2005 and Vice-President of Federation of public workers from 2009 to 2011. She has been involved in several global water justice initiatives including the Platform for public-public and public-community partnerships and the Blue October initiative.

James Olson is a Michigan-based lawyer who has represented citizens and communities in cases involving public trust, water and other environmental issues. He is the founder and President of FLOW (Flow for Love of Water), a Great Lakes Water Policy Center. He has written books and articles, and lectured widely on environmental, land use, water, and public trust law for over 40 years. He also teaches at the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute, Northwestern Michigan College. He has appeared in the films “FLOW For Love of Water” and “Blue Gold.” He has received many awards, including Michigan Lawyers’ Weekly Lawyer of the Year and the State Bar of Michigan Champion of Justice.

Robert Ramsay is the Senior Research Officer for the Municipal Sector at the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ottawa. Prior to this, he worked in research, collective bargaining, and campaigns at the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Robert has graduate degrees in Urban Geography and Communications. He has worked internationally in labour and education, and remains active in social justice work both in Canada and in his native United States.

Britton Schwartz is a clinical fellow and supervising attorney at the Berkeley Law Environmental Law Clinic. The clinic engages students in policymaking, litigation and legislation related to local and global environmental issues with a particular focus on the overlap between environmental protection and social justice. Prior to joining the clinic, Britton helped develop and run the International Human Rights Clinic at Santa Clara University’s School of Law. Her work has focused on environmental justice challenges facing low-income and homeless communities of color and indigenous peoples in the United States and Latin America, with an emphasis on the human rights to water and sanitation.

Here is the article:

THIS SUMMER, 81,000 homes in Pittsburgh received a worrisome letter about their water. The local utility “has found elevated levels of lead in tap water samples in some homes,” it said. Seventeen percent of samples had high levels of the metal, which can cause “serious health problems.”

The situation was bad enough to attract the attention of Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. “The levels in Pittsburgh are comparable to those reported in Flint,” he said in an interview with local TV station WPXI.

This was surprising because until this year, Pittsburgh’s lead levels had always been normal. So what happened?

First, a bit of background: In 2012, the city faced a dilemma. Though it had clean water, its century-old water system desperately needed repair. And its utility, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, was plagued by administrative problems. Residents complained of bad customer service and unfair fees. And after a series of poor financial decisions in the 2000s, PWSA was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Pittsburgh isn’t alone: Public utilities around the country are trying to make ends meet with dwindling public funding and increasingly outdated infrastructure. Many, like Pittsburgh, turn to private management companies to help out.

Pittsburgh’s utility called in Veolia, a Paris-based company that consults with utilities, promising “customized, cost-effective solutions that reflect best practices, environmental protection and a better quality of life.” Veolia consults or manages water, waste, and energy systems in 530 cities in North America, with recent contracts in New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, DC. Last year, the company, which operates in 68 countries, brought in about $27 billion in revenue.

Pittsburgh hired Veolia to manage day-to-day operations and provide an interim executive team, helping the utility run more efficiently and save precious public dollars. Under the terms of the contract, Veolia would keep roughly half of every dollar the utility saved under its guidance.

Under the leadership of Jim Good, a Veolia executive serving as interim director, PWSA began making sweeping changes—and they seemed to be working: Within a year, call waiting times for concerned customers dropped by 50 percent. Thanks to new fees for commercial buildings, new customers, and other assorted changes, the utility saved $2 million.

According to a 2013 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Veolia changed PWSA’s culture, too: Instead of traditional top-heavy management, Good checked in with employees over pizza and burgers every week. At a staff barbecue in 2012, “I told them that we were there to work with the employees as their partners,” he later told the Post-Gazette. “I provided assurances that there wouldn’t be any layoffs and that together we could achieve anything.”

But by the end of 2015, the utility had laid off or fired 23 people—including the safety and water quality managers, and the heads of finance and engineering, according to documents obtained through a Right-to-Know request. The PWSA laboratory staff, which was responsible for testing water quality throughout the 100,000-customer system, was cut in half. Stanley States, a water quality director with 36 years of experience at the utility (employees referred to him as “Dr. Water”) was transferred to an office-based job in the research department. Frustrated with the move, he retired.

Good maintains that not all staffing decisions were made by Veolia, which was in a consulting rather than management role when the layoffs occurred. Any suggested staffing changes had to be approved by the board, he said.

As the lab staff shrank, PWSA made major changes to its water treatment system. For decades, the city had been adding soda ash—a chemical similar to baking soda—to its water to prevent the pipes, many of which are lead, from corroding and leaching into the water. (Lack of corrosion controls caused lead to leach into the water in Flint.) In 2014, PWSA hastily replaced soda ash with another cheaper corrosion control treatment, caustic soda. Such a change typically requires a lengthy testing and authorization process with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, but the DEP was never informed of the change. Nearly two years later, as news spread about the disaster in Flint, the utility switched back to soda ash.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto puts the blame for the treatment change squarely on Veolia, saying the company never informed the utility’s board or the city. Veolia denies responsibility for the change, saying it “did not and would not prioritize cost savings ahead of effective corrosion control methods or water quality.”

What is certain is that this spring, the state’s DEP cited the utility for breaking state law and ordered immediate lead testing.

Tests this summer—the first since 2013—found that the city’s lead levels had crept up and, for the first time on record, exceed federal standards. Seventeen percent of homes had levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion.

Many suspect that the change in water treatment chemicals led to the jump in lead levels; the city is currently conducting an internal investigation into the matter.

Stanley States, the former water quality director, believes the staff cuts almost certainly played a role. Lead levels first crept up in 2013 because of a previous change in treatment chemicals, though they didn’t exceed federal standards. But without a fully staffed lab, says States, the matter wasn’t addressed. “They cut our laboratory in half,” he said. “We would have been researching like crazy this lead corrosion problem to see how to correct it.”

But Pittsburgh citizens’ complaints about Pittsburgh’s water goes beyond quality—it’s also extraordinarily expensive. In 2013, a year after Veolia was hired, the water board approved a 20 percent rate increase over four years; by 2017, the average residential water bill will be $50 per month—triple the average Midwest cost, according to the Guardian.

Soon after, customers began complaining that their bills were coming erratically and appeared to charge for water residents hadn’t used. One vacant property owner was charged for using 132,000 gallons of water in one month—that’s about how much a family of four uses in a year. “You don’t know if it’s going to come in, whether it’s late or not, how much it will be, a Pittsburgh retiree told Truthout. “Then you get it and there’s a late charge.”

In May of 2015, a group of Pittsburgh customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the utility, Veolia North America Water, and the accounting company keeping track of PWSA bills, alleging that new water meter readers installed in 2013 “catastrophically failed and customers have received grossly inaccurate and at times outrageously high bills”—including increases of nearly 600 percent. “PWSA is acutely aware that the billings are wrong but do not hesitate for a moment to issue ‘shut off’ notices and then arbitrarily turn off water service,” read the complaint. PWSA and Veolia declined to respond to the allegations.

Last December, facing the class-action lawsuit, a state citation for changing corrosion controls, and mounting debt, Pittsburgh terminated its contract with Veolia. All told, PWSA had paid Veolia $11 million over the course of the contract.

Earlier this month, the utility announced it was suing the company. According to a press release, Veolia “grossly mismanaged PWSA’s operations, abused its positions of special trust and confidence, and misled and deceived PWSA as part of its efforts to maximize profits for itself to the unfair detriment of PWSA and its customers.”

Pittsburgh isn’t the first municipality to sue Veolia this year. In April, Massachusetts officials sued Veolia, which was managing Plymouth’s sewage treatment facility, for allowing 10 million gallons of untreated sewage to spill in and around the town’s harbor last winter.

Two months later, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette charged Veolia with fraud and negligence for failing to discover Flint’s enduring lead contamination problem after the city hired the company in 2015 to consult on water quality.

“Veolia stated that the water, quote, was safe,” Schuette told NPR. “Veolia also callously and fraudulently dismissed medical and health concerns by stating that, quote, some people may be sensitive to any water.”

In many cases, critics point to a pattern of Veolia saving utilities money through quick fixes—while ignoring bigger problems. In a phone interview, Kevin Acklin, the chief of staff for Pittsburgh’s Mayor Bill Peduto, pointed out that Veolia’s earnings are directly tied to the utility’s short-term savings. “They had the incentive under the contract to not make capital investments in property, planning, and equipment—to basically not fix the pipes when needed, to pass off those costs to other agencies, including the city and private homes,” he alleged. “Ultimately they were fiduciaries for the public authority, but they also served the business needs of a large multinational corporation.”

Veolia denies responsibility in both Plymouth and Flint, saying the leak in Plymouth came from a pipe failure that was out of its control, and that the contract in Flint was limited to looking at another chemical called TTHM.

In the case of Pittsburgh, Veolia maintains that PWSA’s board of directors retained control over the authority over the course of the three-year contract. “Veolia met its obligations and fulfilled the requirements of our contract in a fully transparent manner,” wrote a Veolia North America spokeswoman in an email. “We stand behind the work performed on behalf of PWSA.”

Yet Pittsburgh leaders can’t help but notice that the city’s utility is arguably even worse off than it was when it hired Veolia four years ago, with a depleted bank account—half of all earnings are directed to serving debt—and pipes that are still a century old. “The authority is in a pretty precarious financial situation right now, and I can’t sit here and point to anything tangible to show the positive legacy of the contract we had with Veolia,” says Acklin.

A former PWSA employee was more blunt about it. When asked how to advise utilities considering contracting with Veolia, he warned, “They will come in, rape your water company, and leave with money bags.”

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!

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.

The article of ENET (Eleytherotypia) by Sakis Apostolakis (translation)

The new owners of EYATh will be receiving a dowry of more than € 100 million, paid by Greek taxpayers and the EU

Are Greece’s European Partners aware that the money they have deposited in the EU Cohesion Fund will be used by the Greek Government to subsidize private entrepreneurs?

The modernization of the computer systems of EYATh will cost some € 2 million and will be paid by the Greek taxpayers despite the fact that the company will soon be transferred to private ownership. It was inevitable that such a procedure would draw the attention of the District Attorney and is already under examination. But this case is dwarfed by a more recent procedure according to which the Greek Government will use more than € 100 million of taxpayers’ money and funds of the EU Cohesion Fund to construct or modernize Water Supply and Sewerage Infrastructures on behalf of EYATh; the new (private) owners of the company will benefit from such without having paid a single cent towards their cost.

Today, only a few hours after celebrating Greece’s entry in the EU Presidency, one can only wonder whether all those who attended the party in Athens, and even more importantly the taxpayers in the rest of EU, are aware that their money is given for free to private prospectors. Not only did the Greek Government undertake to proceed with the construction of such infrastructures it also agreed to continue paying for these even after the transfer of the majority of the EYATh shares (and of course its management) to private prospectors.

The price to be paid by the future private owners of EYATh is some € 110 million, i.e. only a small fraction larger than the sums already mentioned. By paying this the new owners will get for free the use of such infrastructures which, among others, include upgrades in the Thessaloniki Biological Treatment Plant, already run by Joint Venture SUEZ-AKTOR (the future owners of EYATH) or other installations run by Castor SA (a subsidiary of AKTOR).

All facts above have already been made public through the webpage of SAPW. SAPW has already prepared the blueprints and issued an invitation to a public tender for such works. The contractor will be paid by SAPW using money given by the Greek State and subsidies of the EU Cohesion Fund. Such a procedure was normal in the past when EYATh was a public institution and even when the Greek State owned the majority of its shares. Now when EYATh is being turned over to the private such a procedure cannot be deemed acceptable.

The sum of € 100+ million is being spent as follows

€ 4,9 million are to be used for building and connection projects in the Biological Treatment Plant (run by castor SA, as has already been mentioned), another € 44 million will be used for the construction of a second branch to the main sewers lineage line, € 17,7 million has been used for building a Thermal Drying Sewage Treatment Unit, while the tender for the Building of an Extension to the Water Treatment Unit (€ 36,5 million) is still pending.

All the above will be to the benefit of the prospected private owners of EYATh. The Greek Government seems to be in a hurry to proceed with the transfer as soon as possible despite the fact that a Council of State Decision (issued on an Appeal against such transaction) orders the discontinuation of the procedure (the Decision has not been formally published yet).

One wonders whether the EU and the EU Cohesion Fund are willing to press the Greek Government towards stopping to subsidize private companies, especially as Greece (i.e. its taxpayers) have been penalized in the past for similar acts of its governments.

If we keep H2O pristine and public, it will teach us how to live.

                                                                             Maude Barlow

by Adria Vasil on NOW

Three years later she cautions that, despite the rise in water consciousness, the stage is being set for unprecedented global drought, mass starvation and millions of water refugees. In Blue Future, Barlow catalogues a vast array of H20 abuses due to fracking, tar sands extraction, biofuels, mining, austerity measures and privatization. But she still believes the story doesn’t have to end in tragedy.

Ecoholic talks to Barlow about the massive rethink needed to save the source of all life.

What do you think is the fundamental problem in our approach to water?

We need a new water ethic, making it a human right and a public trust; we need to [respect] that it has rights, and to understand it will teach us how to live with one another. If we allow water to be put on the open market like oil and gas, we’re going to see millions more people die.

How can we hold the Harper government to account?

This government doesn’t recognize the legal obligations it has, and has dismantled all the rules and tools protecting freshwater: gutting the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which means 99 per cent of our lakes and rivers are now unprotected from fracked or tar sands oil carried by pipelines. We are hoping the next step will be that First Nations use the UN resolution in their fight for clean water.

Can you talk about trends in privatization?

Water is now being bought and sold as private property. It’s not just the privatization of water services but the privatization of the actual ownership of water. The worst is in Chile, where they’ve privatized water absolutely everywhere and auction if off. Canadian mining companies come to Chile and outbid local and indigenous communities and farmers for these rights.

Also, the World Bank in the Global South and austerity programs in Europe are promoting public-private partnerships (P3s). Here in Canada, the Harper government has said that if municipalities want funding for water services, they have to go P3. There was a referendum (September 25) on a P3 for a waste water treatment plant in Regina. We lost that vote. It’s going to blow up right across the country, one city after another. Hamilton tried privatization and has gone back to a public system, as have municipalities around the world. Privatization has failed so badly. Private companies have to deliver services but also at least 15 per cent profit for their investors. To do that they lay off workers, cut corners or raise the water rates. Forty municipalities in France alone, including Paris, have taken water back from private companies. Only in Canada are we setting out to do something that has been proven a mistake in so many other places.

Why should Canadians be worried about the Canada-Europe trade agreement?

 If we sign this, the two biggest water service [companies] in the world, Veolia and Suez, will be allowed to sue for millions of dollars in compensation if a municipality decides to go back to public water. The agreement is a noose around public water services.

Why don’t you support water metres on homes to encourage conservation?

I prefer taxation. This is a poor environment politically to ask for more taxes, so I think we need to shift the burden from families and small business, and charge licence fees to big commercial users. That does not mean any commercial user can access water if they pay. I oppose bottled water takings. In Ontario, users only pay $3.71 for a million litres; the public is subsidizing their profits. We have to fiercely manage water systems and care for them, and that can only be done under public and democratic control.

How can water teach us to live together?

We see conflict within and between countries over dwindling water supplies. I want people to think like the characters in those Hollywood movies when a comet’s coming. Suddenly, all the differences between people don’t mean anything, because it’s all going to be gone. There is a comet coming at us – it’s called the global water crisis, and we’re going to have to say, “I’ll give up an interest here for a larger good there; I’ll forgive an ancient hatred because we both have to survive on this watershed.” Water can be nature’s gift to teach us how to live with one another. It’s a peacemaking tool.

[/vc_column_text] [/vc_column] [/vc_row]

The Government of Greece in an attempt to diminish the market value of EYDAP, is ready to write off more than € 700 m of its, thus making it easier for the prospective buyers to acquire. At the same time part of the sums owed by several municipalities to EYDAP will be paid by the State; this way the citizens will have paid twice, as the sums that are to be covered through taxes have already been paid (to the municipalities) by those who received said water and sewerage services.

The CEO of EYDAP (Antonis Vartholomaios, who is apparently not concerned about his civil and penal liabilities) has already attempted to force the BoD cut down the sums owed by the Greek State to the Company but failed. Due to the resistance of several Board Members the issue will be referred to a Shareholders extraordinary Meeting. The Board Members that opposed said proposal were Bank and Union representatives as well as the TAIPED (Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund – HRADF) one. The CEO has been forced to convene another meeting to which he is probably going to submit a similar proposal. Meanwhile the Government put forth an act to be discussed and voted by the Parliament whereby all its debts to EYDAP from 1999 on will be written off.

Memoranda Obligations of the Greek State

According to L 4179/2013 the Greek State will have to pay all it owes to EYDAP and EYATh before the companies are transferred to private prospectors. Such debts to EYDAP (services as well as the State’s share in investments and maintenance of the company’s network) amount to ca € 1,05 billion. Of this € 350 m have already been approved by Shareholders’ Meetings and legally entered in the company’s ledgers as claims, while the State has never offered (nor could it of course) any objection for the rest.

However the Government is trying to pay only € 350 m and write off the rest. In this they are assisted by the company’s CEO, who, after having failed to force the Board to decide on this, is referring the issue to the shareholders. Currently the majority (61,33% of the shares) is owned by the Greek State through HRADF. This simply means that the debtor of a company will decide as to how much and when of its debt shall be paid, while HRADF, which has the duty to sell the company’s shares in the highest possible price, will agree to lower its value by at least € 700 m. Still HRADF’s representative in the company’s Board expressed some concerns and hasn’t yet agreed to this.

Municipality Debts

At the same time (through art 52 of L 4186/2013, which deals with Education issues!) municipality debts to EYDAP are fixed to € 160 m, while interest and penalties over € 200 m have been written off. Such amounts however have already been collected from citizen consumers by the municipalities (and spent for altogether different matters) but will now be paid by the State, that is through taxes raised from these same citizens.

Note from SAVEGREEKWATER: To better understand how exactly the Greek government deals with the debts of the public sector towards EYDAP please refer to these two legislative moves before the calling of the general assembly of stakeholders of the company.

• The government proceeded in offsetting debts between EYDAP and the public sector through an amendment tabled by the ministers of Finance, Infrastructure and Tourism in the bill to reorganize the Tourism Organism EOT (31/07/2013). They also provided the power to determin any eventual debts until 30 June 2013 by Joint Ministerial Decision. This decision refers to debts by the State to EYDAP for infrastructure, construction of water projects of public entities, construction and maintenance of flood protection works, etc., and non-tax debts of the company towards the government.

• A joint ministerial decision (26/9/2013) the Ministers of Interior and Finance was issued to regulate the debts of first and second degree of municipalities to water companies EYDAP and EYATH. (FEK 2410B prot.n. 38560). This regulation refers to debts till the end of July 2013, totaling 162.3 million euros (about 150 million to EYDAP and about 13 million to EYATH) and it will be free from fines. The sum will be paid by the central government and will be deducted from each local government that created it, from their future revenues of state grants of the years 2015-2020.

Majority support public ownership of services says new poll

It is often claimed that handing over public services to private companies makes them more efficient, responsive and cheaper.

For the last three decades the services upon which we all rely have been gradually sold off to the highest bidder. From the water we drink to our precious National Health Service, almost everything we once owned together has either already been hived off to the private sector or is likely to be so.

Against this backdrop of privatisation, when even the Ordnance Survey Maps and our blood banks are at risk, a new campaign is joining the movement in favour of public ownership.

It seems that despite successive governments’ slavish devotion to privatisation the British public aren’t at all convinced. A poll released today by Survation, and commissioned by We Own It, shows that it’s by no means just the radical left who believe in the public ownership of our services. Four in five people think that there should be an in-house bid when a public service is put out to tender and 60% think that local and national government should run public services in the public sector as the default option.

The fact is that this polling reflects a widespread lack of trust in the private companies who are trying to run our services. People are sick of corners being cut by companies like G4S and firms like Serco putting patients safety at risk.

And while private companies are often failing to provide a decent service a number of publicly owned services are giving us genuine success stories.

The East Coast Mainline, which for years was a failing service run by successive private companies, is now owned by the state and improving customer satisfaction at the same time as paying millions of pounds of premiums into the government coffers. Similarly Scottish Water is publicly owned and doing very well. The water provider supplies 2.4 million households with drinking water while investing heavily in reducing leakage and cutting its operating costs meaning that the average household cost is the lowest in the UK.

Public services should be accountable to the people who use them, good employers for the people who work for them and provide top quality services to the people who need them.

The privatisation-as-usual era is coming to an end. The public is getting increasingly fed up of paying dividends to shareholders while the price of services goes up and the quality goes down. Time after time private companies have proved to be inefficient and expensive while publicly owned services are making a serious comeback.

From today the fightback against privatisation is stepping up a gear. We Own It is campaigning to put people at the heart of public services through a Public Service Users Bill.

The tender for the selling of Thessaloniki water company,  EYATH, which takes place under media silence by (private) TV stations  enters now in its second phase, after the TAIPED excluded “Citizens for Water“(the effort of cooperative management by Thessalonians together with the union workers). Mr. Stavridis, former president of the EYDAP (Athens Water Company) and now head of  TAIPED (or HDRAF, the fund where all public assets were transferred in order to be sold), who is among the most eager supporters of  free economy, especially when it is implemented by creating private monopolies under the supervision of “regulators”, in a monumental, for the lack of any legal or other documentation or explanation, letter ‘informs’  in an acquiescent tone that the Union’s proposal does not “pass” to the next phase. In the next phase, however, passes the French multinational Suez along with the even more willing Mr. Bobolas and even  the public (!) Israeli company Mekorot’s joint venture with Mr. Apostolopoulos. The Union has already filed a complaint, as it was expected, and now we wait.

We wait furthermore for the implementation of the decisions of 17 municipalities from the region of Thessaloniki  to hold local referendums and the signing of the relevant notorious presidential decree which enables this procedure,  a decree which is characteristically “slow” in its legislative adventure, from Callicrates until today – how many years is it? – While overnight the institutional “father” of the Greek people signed with a stroke of a pen the abolition of ERT. Following the announced privatization of water,  a few days ago, ” black” fell on all television, radio, internet and satellite programs of the public broadcaster.

It is a sad development in our effort to inform our fellow citizens over the dangers of privatization, since we were expecting  the projection of a relevant documentary of the series  “EXANDAS” by Y. Avgeropoulos, in the preparation of which we participated. This development is dangerous for another delicate reason, which falls in the category of our engagement with the wider concept of the commons. The archive of ERT, the ark of our modern cultural history, it is inconceivable for us to become an object  of vulgar trade and such an act would signify the ultimate enclosure, beyond that of our natural collective goods such as water, of our collective intellect and our cultural heritage.

In both cases what we see is a palinode. The government blames the Troika and the European Commission and the Commission washes its hands regarding these decisions. I want to denounce the current government and especially their assistant political parties, who are opposed, as they claim,  at the sale of EYATH (and the abolition of ERT) that they are moving on their own responsibility and to a future time hopefully liability in this sale, since there is an official letter from the European Commission that says they are not pushing our country in this direction. Why the Commission wrote this letter? They know that the pressure to privatize water services is unlawful, since they are bound by the TFEU to be neutral on issues of management of water services (Article 345 TFEU). So if the government is pressed, they have to admit it in public, to come forward and say that the European Commission  is lying and we can all support them and go to the European courts. If the government is not pressed and simply lacks rationality and an  understanding of the concept of public interest, there is another reason why they shouldn’t want the sale of water services. In the case of Athens even if sold at 350 million, ie the market value of our shares, the public sector’s shares, to the water company, tomorrow instead of collecting, the government should instead pay, since the company has receivables from the State, local authorities, etc., which mount up to 1.2 billion! (See Annual Financial Report 2012). As for the European Commission, they have no legitimacy to move forward with the privatization in the countries of the South, when we already have in our hands the first historically successful European Citizens’ Initiative right2water. Instead of playing hide and seek, they would do well to open directly processes to institutionalize the human right to access to clean water and hygiene, which was adopted in 2010 by the UN, as the proposed legislative initiative by the citizens suggest and abandon their desires for establishing a water market in Europe,  desires rooting in the Steering group of Mr Barnier, a body composed of high ranking executives of the sector’s multinationals. The institutional role of Mr Barnier, although he fails to grasp it, is the European public interest and speculation on the basic needs of European citizens do not reflect it in the least.

Whether it is about our  physical commons such as water, or our collective cultural heritage, one thing is certain. Each enclosure is directly or indirectly against the fundamental human right to life. Commons are not owned by any temporary elected representative.

Regardless of whether one agrees or not with the above, there is one point on which everyone would meet me upon: It is the responsibility of the Politeia (State) (Greek and European) to  give an institutional way-out at the society’s will . If it cannot perform it, we have an ontological crisis as a political society, far more destructive than the much discussed economical.

Sign for your water in Greece and Europe.

Some figures: EYATH is a company with a monopoly on the supply of water in Thessaloniki area. It has profitability in 2012 of 24 million euros, available cash 33 million euros, equity of 135 million euros and annual income 74 million. The value of the stock is 220 million euros and the 75% that is held by TAIPED if sold in the market value which is 165 million euros, the investor will get his money back in six years and will obtain ownership of a company with monopoly rights. It is an investment that with current water prices has an 18% annual return on capital employed (33/135) and if the tarrifs are increased the return yields off.

Why “no” to privatization: What are the implications in our lives from the privatization of water services; What does international experience show? • sudden price increases of 250% – 300% with the partial privatization of EYATH. Prices x12 times in Bucharest over 13 years. Pacos de Ferreira Portugal 400% increase and 6% increase each year.• Degradation of water quality and uneven access to water services. In Walkerton (Ontario) Canada seven people lost their lives drinking water with bacteria E coli. Extensive infections with Suez in Johannesburg (South Africa). • Incomplete network maintenance & breaches of contractual terms for investments. In France, funding water services are still made by the public sector at 88%. In Argentina, the government terminated the contract with Suez for breach of its contractual obligations (maintenance and expansion of the network). • Monopolistic practices and cartels. The EU conducted research at SUEZ, VEOLIA and SAUR, for trusts in France (2012). In England companies right from the stage of the competition do not compete with each other and take to competitions without rival. • Lack of accountability and secret agreements. Most contracts remain secret eluding anyone control. In Berlin, the VEOLIA and RWE, in 1999, had demanded a written guarantee large profit was kept secret until the public in 2011 by referendum demanded to publicize the terms of the contract. Wherevere applied, water privatization has failed.

The international trend is the recovery of water services by public bodies (France, Canada, Argentina, Hungary). The Italians prevented water privatization with a referendum (2011). In the Netherlands water services is by law public (2004). In Germany, except in the case of Berlin, where developments of remunicipalization are underway, water management is done by public bodies.

*Ms Kanellopoulou is a founding member of the Initiative for the non privatization of water in Greece savegreekwater.org

By Ryan Meade

Note: As an independent forum, the Institute does not express any opinions of its own. The views expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the author.