Title: FW: [globalnews] Secret WTO Agreement to Privatize US water/sewer systems
News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign
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Dear Water Activists:
A courageous public official has leaked the European Union's (EU) latest requests to the U.S. and other countries to adopt favorable trade rules to open municipal water/sewer systems to competition by European corporations. Below is a news release on the topic which your organization can release jointly with the Alliance for Democracy. Just add your own
local quote and local press contact information. Note there is a
suggested quote which you can use if you want. Be sure to delete
this if you are adding your own. If you use it, you have to add a
spokesperson. So don't just copy this release and send it out
without making the changes!
Again, we ask that you do not change any other part of the press release.
You might want to call your local press and suggest that they ask
municipal officials if they have ever even heard anything about this.
The best chance we have of stopping the U.S. from going along with
the requests is if local officials make a stink. Also it's important
for local officials to join in the call for the U.S. documents to be
made public.
Please let me know if you have contacted your press and whether they
ran a story. Also I can be available for radio interviews if this
would be helpful to you.
--Ruth
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LEAKED EU TRADE DOCUMENTS CONFIRM MUNICIPAL WATER/SEWER SYSTEMS UNDER ATTACK
Despite frequent denials by European trade officials, they are
targeting public services in the current round of services
negotiations. The Alliance for Democracy has received leaked official
European Commission documents confirming that municipal water/sewer
systems in the United States are on the negotiating table.
The documents, being made public today by the Polaris Institute of
Canada, are available at http://www.polarisinstitute.org <http://www.polarisinstitute.org/> They
reveal that the European Commission (EC) has requested that the
United States, along with many developing countries, adopt favorable
trade rules to help open its municipal water/sewer systems to
competition by European corporations.
The negotiations are taking place to expand the General Agreement on
Trade in Services (GATS), one of the agreements under the authority
of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO deadline for initial
offers in response to the requests is March 31, 2003.
Each restricted document states: "Member States are requested to
ensure that this text is not made publicly available and is treated
as a restricted document." The public was never supposed to know
what public services were being traded away in secret bilateral
negotiations among the 145 WTO member countries until all the deals
had been cut. But thanks to an unknown courageous public servant in
Europe these critical documents have been leaked.
"Municipal water/sewer systems are under a GATS attack and local
officials have not even been told. Secret negotiations about the
public's right to water is not how democracy should work," observed
Ruth Caplan, coordinator of the Alliance for Democracy's trade
campaign.
"It is time for United States to make its requests and offers
public," Caplan stated. "The public needs to know whether the Office
of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) headed by Robert Zoellick
will protect essential public services or trade them away in response
to the European requests. The Alliance calls on USTR to make public
all its requests to other countries immediately and to make its
offers public as soon as they are made." To date only unsatisfactory
general summaries of the requests have been released.
"Today the cat is out of the bag. We're not talking bananas here. The
EU is going after our basic public water/sewer services so their
mega-corporations can make big bucks in the U.S. market," said.......
[possible local quote--feel free to make up your own]
The EC is specifically requesting that its corporations be given
market access for "Water collection, purification and distribution
services through mains" within United States' boundaries. This
classification under "Water for Human Use & Wastewater Management"
has been created by the EC.
The EU also wants their water corporations to be treated at least as
well as U.S. companies in all measures affecting municipal services,
even measures which might be construed to modify the conditions of
competition. Almost all local regulations could be under threat.
Where the U.S.had previously agreed to opening up waste water
services for private industry, the EC wants public services opened up
as well.
"The EC pats itself on the back for fully defending its own public
services by not making any commitments on education and health
services, but goes ahead with asking that the United States and
developing countries open up their publicly-owned municipal
water/sewer systems. They are simply doing the bidding of Vivendi,
Suez and RWE/Thames, the giant European corporations which want
access to water service markets," according to Caplan. "This is a
lucrative market for EC corporations since about 80% of local
water/sewer systems are still in public hands."
The track record of Vivendi, Suez and Thames has not been good.
Atlanta just terminated its contract with Suez subsidiary United
Water due to poor performance. Vivendi has performed very poorly in
Great Britain, Puerto Rico and Argentina. Thames' environmental
record in Great Britain includes 233 pollution incidents and 8
prosecutions in 1999 alone, according to research by Public Services
International.
GATS locks in commitments made to open up specific services to
foreign competition, so once the U.S. commits to including
water/sewer services, they will not be able to back out.
For more information, contact
Ruth Caplan, Alliance for Democracy, 202-244-0561
add your local contact
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ruth Caplan
Alliance for Democracy
Washington DC Office
3407 34th Place NW
Washington DC 20016
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
202-244-0561 phone
202-537-6045 fax
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy/globalization <http://www.thealliancefordemocracy/globalization>
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--
“Relaxing loosely, letting go ---
original wisdom holds it’s ground.
In the river of awareness the mud settles down
and the brightness shines!”
- Looking Nakedly, Resting Still by Milarepa
