Totally dominant lobbies in a downgraded Europe

Totally dominant lobbies in a downgraded Europe – (part 6)

Barroso administration: Golden medal in serving interests

A research by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)

“Through the course of the crisis, attempts by corporations and corporate lobby groups to influence EU policies have probably been more successful than ever, in part due to a close relationship with the Commission.”

“Corporate Europe Observatory has gathered a lot of evidence over time and covering many different areas that shows how the Commission is easily captured by corporate interests. This report is an attempt to produce a condensed version of how the Commission has come to act on behalf of corporations over the past five years, focusing on climate policies, agriculture and food, finance, economic, and fiscal policies.”

6 - Water privatisation: Corporations over citizens

Key findings

“More than 80% of water supply and sanitation networks in the EU are publicly run, but for 20 years the Commission has been under strong pressure from private water companies to find ways to force public authorities to outsource these networks’ management to the private sector. The Barroso II Commission did not depart from its predecessors’ habits of carefully listening to these demands and doing what it could to satisfy them. The most scandalous way it did just that was through the 'Troika', imposing the privatisation of water supply in crisis-hit countries such as Portugal and Greece as conditions for their financial rescue. The Directory General for Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN) of the European Commission is part of the Troika together with the EU’s Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and in this setting the Commission can dispense from respecting EU legislation as these 'aid' deals are not made within the EU’s legal system.”

“As a consequence, water supply systems were almost entirely privatised in Portugal, and the privatisation process is ongoing in Greece’s two largest cities, Athens and Thessaloniki. Ireland also had to introduce water pricing for the same reasons (Irish citizens were previously getting water free of charge), and Italy came under strong pressure after a national referendum that saw 96% of voters oppose water privatisation laws.”

“Within the EU legislation, a new threat to the public water sector by the Commission appeared in the form of a directive on concession contracts, a widely used form of outsourcing in the water sector. Developed by Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier (French), the proposal’s stated objective was to 'harmonise' legislation. However, it soon became clear that the proposal would severely limit possibilities for public-public partnerships and other forms of cooperation between public institutions, as well as force many public companies with a mixed capital to organise EU-wide tenders. Heide Rühle, a green MEP, described it as 'market opening and increased pressure towards privatisation'. Very critical media reports on the plans sparked outrage in Germany and Austria: hundreds of thousand citizens in these two countries signed a European Citizens Initiative [http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome?lg=en] organised by public sector unions demanding the implementation of the right to water and the exclusion of water systems from the internal market, making it the first ever successful ECI. Eventually, the German government itself intervened and the Commission had to exclude water from the scope of the directive, to the fury of the private water companies’ lobby.”

“The Commission’s push for privatisation is even more remarkable in that it goes against what happens on the ground in Europe and around the world in the water sector. Paris and many other cities have recently remunicipalised their water services due to negative experiences with privatisation. The Dutch government in 2004 passed a law banning private sector provision of water supply and the Italian Constitutional Court ruled that any future legislation attempting to privatise public services would be unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Commission seems to either ignore these facts or only consider them as unjustified barriers to privatisation.”

http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/record_captive_commission.pdf