Three
key objectives were stated at the launch of the ECI in May 2012: ‘(1) The EU institutions and Member States be
obliged to ensure that all inhabitants enjoy the right to water and sanitation;
(2) water supply and management of water resources not be subject to ‘internal
market rules’ and that water services are excluded from liberalisation; and (3)
the EU
increases its efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation’ (http://www.right2water.eu/). My analysis is based on interviews with key
activists as well as documentary research from November 2014 to July 2015. The
findings were initially presented in a talk at the Monthly
Forum of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in
Brussels in January 2015.
Long
history of water
struggles
The ECI did not emerge out of the blue. Since the increasing push for the privatisation of water services from the early 1990s onwards, struggles over water had erupted around the world. Most well-known is the so-called water war of Cochabamba/Bolivia. When the price for water increased by 200 per cent or more as the result of privatisation, local resistance erupted. Peaceful protesters were met by police and soldiers and violent clashes ensued with one 17 year old protester being killed. Eventually, in April 2000 the Bolivian government revoked the concession to Aguas del Tunari, a consortium around the US construction giant Bechtel.
Another key moment, inspired by the success of
the first European Social Forum in Firenze/Italy in November 2002, was the
first Alternative
World Water Forum in Firenze in 2003. It was intended to provide opposition to
the official World Water Forum and its emphasis on public-private partnerships
for the organisation of water distribution. The World Water Forum is organised
by the World Water Council, which is accused of being ‘a mouthpiece for
transnational companies and the World Bank’ (http://www.fame2012.org/en/). The objective of the Alternative Forum is
ultimately to de-marketise water and to democratize the government of water as
a resource. A first major success was the adoption of a resolution by the UN in
2010 recognising water as a human right, sponsored by several governments from
the Global South and here in particular Bolivia.
Other
noticeable struggles were the successful Italian referendum against the
privatisation of water in 2011 (see The Struggle for Public Water
in Italy) as
well as the re-municipalisations of water services in Paris in 2010 and Berlin
in 2013 amongst many other cities around the world. In short, the ECI has
ultimately been the coming together of different struggles from local, national
and global levels, concretised in a European-level effort by the European
Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) co-ordinating the overall campaign.
The unique quality of water
The
theme of water has significant symbolic power with water being understood as a
fundamental source of life and, therefore, as a human right, reflected in the
very title of the ECI. This discourse, for example, resonated with the Catholic
Social Doctrine, ensuring strong support from Catholic groups in the Italian
referendum against water privatisation in June 2011 (see Catholics in the Italian water
movement).
The
three broad objectives of the ECI incorporated well these various dimensions of
the symbolic power of water, with different concerns being of more importance
in different countries and for different types of movement partners. For example,
in Germany the opposition to the liberalisation of water services, Point 2 of
the ECI, was crucial and directly linked to discussions around the concessions
directive. While the ECI was ongoing, the Commission had also published the
draft concessions directive, liberalising water services and forcing public
entities to tender contracts openly across the EU. Liberalisation does not automatically imply privatisation. Considering the complex
procedures and capital and technology intensiveness of such public tendering,
it would, however, have been inevitable that these contracts would have been
snapped up by large, private TNCs such as Veolia and Suez.
The
issue of water as a human right was more prominent in the Dutch campaign
(Interview No.17). For catholic groups, universal access to water and
sanitation, demanded in Point 1 of the ECI, proved important as an issue of
social justice in the Italian context, while Point 3 about the EU pushing for
water as a human right globally was relevant for development NGOs such as the Comitato Italiano Contratto Mondiale
sull’Acqua (CICMA) in Italy, which is part of the World Water Contract
movement, or German groups such as the Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung (http://www.forumue.de/) or the church related
organisation Brot für die Welt,
arguing that Europe had a responsibility for the whole world. Environmental
groups including, for example, the Italian Legambiente
or the German Grüne Liga equally
participated, because when water becomes privatised and the sector is dominated
by the profit motive, the protection of the environment generally comes second,
it was argued.
Broad alliance of actors at European as
well as national level
The fact that the
ECI had been based on and supported by a broad alliance of trade unions, social
movements and NGOs was also crucial for its success. At the European level, it
was EPSU, which initiated the campaign and also sustained it with its
administrative and financial resources. It formed a European level alliance
together with other organisations such as the European Environmental Bureau
(EEB), the European Anti Poverty Network
(EAPN) and the Social Platform (see http://www.right2water.eu/who-we-are-organizations). EPSU’s organisational structure bringing together representatives of its
national federations in the organising committee provided the crucial backbone
and leadership of the campaign
Even more important, however, than the European-level alliance were the
various alliances of unions and social movements at the national level.
National quotas had to be reached in at least seven countries and the
collection of signatures, therefore, had to be organised at the national level.
Unsurprisingly, the
success of the ECI was not equal across all EU countries. Germany stood out as
the country with the most signatures. 1,341,061 signatures were collected, of
which 1,236,455 were considered valid. Making the link between the ECI and the
concessions directive proved to be crucial for the high number of signatures.
Moreover, there was a tightly organised
campaign around the services trade union ver.di,
supported by the German trade union confederation DGB,
together with a whole range of local water movements such as the Berliner Wassertisch, the Wasser
Allianz Augsburg, or the NGO WasserInBürgerhand, environmental movements such
as the BUND, the Grüne Liga and the feminist group EcoMujer, as well as development NGOs including the Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung.
The
possibility to sign the ECI on the internet obtained decisive importance
through media presence, be it a discussion of water privatisation in the
investigative programme Monitor
in December 2012, be it the picking up of the campaign and portraying of the
internet address in the comedy show ‘Neues aus der Anstalt’
in January 2013 or the coverage in the ZDF heute show in February
2013.
In Italy the water movement
had already successfully collected signatures on a number of occasions. This
time too, they had no problem at reaching the national quota with 65223
validated signatures. In
the end, 13 countries including Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and
Spain collected the required amount of signatures. The fact that the quota was
achieved in 13 countries is a sign of success and this was also due to the fact
that it had been possible to connect the European alliance with local and
national campaigns.
Of course, while impressive in itself, the main participating
organisations and here especially EPSU are only likely to engage in another
ECI, if this first one has actually got a concrete impact on policies.
Prof. Andreas Bieler
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
10 September 2015
Prof. Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
10 September 2015
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