Country & City Focus

Open letter to French people

Les tyrans ont toujours quelque ombre de vertu Ils soutiennent les lois avant de les abattre.
Voltaire
(Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.)

Frenchmen, our brothers!

On the 19th of February, your President, François Hollande, visited the capital of our country, Athens. “Our message to Greece is a message of friendship, support, trust and growth” stated your President and asked the French corporations to invest… to invest in land and water.

Hollande and Samaras (Greek PM) talk about “investments” in the sector of water resources management, resources which are protected by the Greek Constitution, and belong to none, nor the Prime minister, to trade them in.

The Platfom Aigua és Vida (Water is Life) and the citizens of Barcelona need your support

The Platfom Aigua és Vida (Water is Life) and the citizens of Barcelona need your support, please sign the MANIFESTO of support here.

Many of us are suffering every day the impacts of water privatisation. In Catalonia the monopolist and for-profit approach water service is widely extended, having most of the municipalities their water service privatised and managed by AGBAR, subsidiary of the french multinational SUEZ. The contempt and impacts of SUEZ all over the world is well-known for all of you, with some rellevant examples like the cancellation of the contracts in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Córdoba (Argentina), La Paz y El Alto (Bolivia), Atlanta (UEA), París (France), etc, or the strong opposition in El Saltillo (Mexico), Johannesburg (South Africa), Jakarta (Indonesia) or Manila (Philippines), among many others.

Report from the National Assembly of The Italian Forum for Water Movements

Rome, 24-25 November 2012.

The Italian Forum for Water Movements held its national assembly a year and a half after its extraordinary referendum victory.

The discussion began with an analysis of this intense year, marked by repeated attacks from all levels at the outcome of the referendum, which expressed the will of 26 million people.

It was agreed that it was a year of strong resistance by the movement for water, which promoted local and national initiatives for the remunicipalisation of water services, a campaign for civil obedience and mobilizations against the consolidation of large multi-utilities. A year, that has demonstrated the persistence of local grassroots building and the political subjectivity of the movement as well as a reinforcement of the reasons behind the referendum victory.

Reggio Emilia city towards re-municipalisation of water

Monday, December 17th, the City Council of Reggio Emilia has approved a statement that bring the emilian town near the re-municipalisation of the water service and represents another example for the rest of Italy.

In fact, the popular initiative motion submitted by the Reggio Emilia Water Common Good Committee, even voted by a majority of the City Council (PD, Democratic Party, SEL, Left, Ecology and Liberty) and a part of the minority (M5S, Five Stars Movement and former Lega Nord people), with no votes against, point out to the need to go out from the multi-utility enterprise IREN and identifies the managing body in a “public law special company”.

A Fraudulent Remunicipalisation in Berlin

Latest developments in the parliament of the City State of Berlin that took place last Wednesday (25th October 2012).

The SPD / CDU coalition agreed to buy back RWE’s 24.9% share in the Berlin Water Company for EUR 654 million, even though RWE had already amortized more than the sum it paid in 1999. This high price is based on an estimate of RWE’s profit over the next 16 years until 2028. But this pales into insignificance compared to the terms of a new contract with the other private partner, Veolia, which, as far as we have been able to ascertain, is concluded for a further 30 years.

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