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Blue Planet Project celebrates one-year anniversary of water win in Thessaloniki

The Blue Planet Project extends its solidarity and congratulations to our Greek water justice allies on the one-year anniversary of the referendum on water privatization in Thessaloniki.

Just over a year ago, Ekathimerini.com reported, “Opponents of plans to privatize EYATH, the state-run company that provides the northern port city of Thessaloniki with water and sewage services, hope to reverse the process by putting it to a referendum on Sunday [May 18}. …Organizers hope that a resounding no vote could still halt plans to denationalize the company, which is being eyed by Suez Environnement SA and Israel’s national water company Mekorot. …Citizens are expected to vote on the matter while casting their ballots for the municipal and regional elections at polling centers around the city…”

The ballot question was Συμφωνείτε με την ιδιωτικοποίηση της Εταιρείας Ύδρευσης-Αποχέτευσης Θεσσαλονίκης; ΟΧΙ ή ΝΑI, which translates as, “Do you agree with the privatization of the Water Supply and Sewerage Company of Thessaloniki? No or yes” The results were an overwhelming success, with about 98 per cent of people voting against the privatization of EYATH.



Twitter photo by EU Water Movement

To celebrate this win a year later, our Greek water justice allies held a conference this May 17-18. To share in their celebration and planning for the future, Blue Planet Project campaigner Meera Karunananthan sent a solidarity video that was shown at their gathering. Other water justice allies from around the world, including Bolivian water activist Oscar Olivera, also sent a video message.


The Blue Planet Project first expressed solidarity with the campaign to stop the privatization of EYATH in March 2012 when we met with Greek activists at the World Water Forum counter-summit in Marseille, France. That relationship has continued to flourish over the years, particularly with our friend Yiorgos Archontopoulos.


In 2012, the Blue Planet Project published a report which concluded, “There is no separate justification for the privatisation of the two water companies. Government uses the general rationale of needing to sell public assets to pay off the debt burden, because otherwise we won’t have “money for salaries and pensions.” This line is repeated as an excuse for every measure that the government, the Central European Bank and the IMF want to impose. We believe that privatisation will have the same results and impacts experienced elsewhere – namely, it will result in decreased access, higher rates and lower quality of service.”


For campaign blogs on the struggle for water justice in Greece, please click here.