Thoughts on ‘how to win’: the water struggle in Greece

What does it take for a movement to actually win? Organizers in the campaign against water privatization in Greece share their story and their strategy.

The path to the privatization of water in Greece was paved by the entry into the stock market in 1999 of the two major water companies, which led to the French multinational Suez entering the market. But it is now, with the loan agreement between the Greek government and the Troika of foreign lenders, that the real sell-off is to take place. For those citizens patient enough to read the whole document, there is a clause on page 682 of Law 4046/2012 which clearly includes in the macabre long list of assets to be privatized the two biggest water companies of Greece, both profitable: EYDAP (Athens and region) and EYATH (Thessaloniki and region).

Since July 2012, when SAVEGREEKWATER.ORG, the initiative for the non-privatization of water, was launched, we have been constantly strategizing on how to stop this from happening. We have collaborated closely with members of the two unions and several other organizations in Greece and abroad, and have struggled side-by-side with other movements like Movement 136, which aims for the social management of EYATH through a cooperatives of users; SOSte to Nero, an anti-privatization front in Northern Greece; Watervolo, protecting the springs at the beautiful Pelion mountain from industrialization; and numerous other networks in Greece. Stopping privatization is a first step in a vision for a non-profit, rational and democratic management of water, but for that we might need to found NONPROFITWATER.GR, where most of us would probably romantically enrol.