Our friend Maria Kanellopoulou updates us on the campaign to stop the privatization of the water utilities in Athens and Thessaloniki. Our allies SaveGreekWater.org, Movement 136, SOSte to Nero, Watervolo and numerous other organizations share this aim.
She notes, “At the national level, 40 organizations from the assemblies of the squares to scientific unions co-sign our campaign; 5 municipalities already adopted resolutions against water privatization; and recently news articles have begun to claim that the Supreme Court is about to cancel the transfer of EYDAP and EYATH (the two water utilities) state stocks to TAIPED (the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund), through which all privatizations are carried out, on grounds that ‘water is a public good’.”
If the Supreme Court in Greece cancels the transfer, that would be good news.
A Blue Planet Project report 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.”
Read Maria’s fuller report. And here’s a blog I wrote last March that gives some additional background.
