There are few reports in the newspapers and no TV in the privatization of water. Yet in these days you decide our future. There is discussion in the Senate because the new law makes no public management of water. It is not only our dilemma. Many countries around the world are wondering, the press and on television, until the pun is permissible to privatize a public good, that everyone should have shaft. The fact is that the water is about to become the gold in the future there are those who think to make money on it. Hence the rush to grab a few large multinationals are the rights granted.
I have already written on the subject. And there are those who I replied that my concerns are exaggerated because the properties of the sources and networks will still be public even though the supply to private firms. But the right to water is expressed only when and if it flows from the tap is drinkable. The city does not go with the bucket at the well or other source or line up to the water. The right to drinking water is exercised only through the management and delivery.
In most of Europe, moreover, the privatization has been stopped or even, as happens in France, is undergoing a process of ripubblicizzazione. Switzerland has declared the water and water systems State monopoly, is not open to privatization. Belgium has made a law to which all the valves are operated by spa in-house, or whose shares are all in the hands of the Co muni. The United States refuses to privatize the management of local water systems that remain solid in the hands of municipalities. Throughout Latin America and then act in a large laboratory on the commons. In Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and now in Chile parliaments would also change the Constitutions to enforce those principles. Remember that in Chile, the privatization took place only Pinochet came to power. Today, the Chilean government is returning to public ownership.
Why so worried about the private management water? The fact is that when a good pass so important in private hands, the first consequence is the diminution of its controls, the second is that higher prices (as happened in Latin America where the transfer to the multinational Veolia have led to increased rates 300%) and often also squeezes the hand of organized crime (something that happened in Sicily and Calabria).
The league that was opposed to privatization, most recently he changed his mind. Why? Lease-signing today a bill that proposes Calderoli even to get to 30% participation of the municipalities party to the management companies already listed. Senators and MPs ask that reflect before approving a law that will enrich the large private companies (those most favored today are foreign) and impoverish our government.
Dacia Maraini, "Corriere della Sera, November 3, 2009
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