With 152 YES votes, coalition government lawmakers from left-wing SYRIZA and nationalists Independent Greeks approved the privatization of the water companies in Athens and Thessaloniki.
Replying to sharp criticism form opposition parties and the society, the government insisted that “indebted state-run enterprises would hardly find an investor” and that the Water Companies in Athens (EYDAP) and Thessaloniki (EYATH) will be only transferred to Privatization super fund for 99 years.
The water privatization is part of 15 prior actions demanded by lenders in order to release the 2.8-billion-euros bailout trance.
The multi-bill that was voted on Tuesday evening contains also privatization of several state-run enterprises like the Public Power Company (DEH) and the Attica metro.
With the water privatization, SYRIZA deeply disappointed its voters for one more time. Two years ago, when ND-PAOSK coalition wanted to privatize the EYATH, SYRIZA had led an campaign against and evne launched a referentum among the city’s residents.
SYRIZA has just given up, and allowed all these neoliberal policies to ruin Greece. The examples of privatisations from the UK indicate that the indebted state-run enterprises are the most dangerous to privatise, because the new owners use their monopoly power to extort money from the entire population and make massive profits.Water should never be in private hands: this is the stupidest thing that a government can do, apart from surrendering to a foreign power without a war. Oh wait, Tsipras (along with Samaras and Papandreou) has done that, too…
The train company was also deeply indebted. The assets were sold and the debt was transferred to the government thereby increasing our national debt by 550 million euros. How does this help? I feel sick just reading this.
Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right and should not be up for profit taking. Some commons should simply not be privatized under the banner of ‘better service for better prices’ cause practice shows otherwise. Eventually it will lead to the forming of cartels and the fixing of prices. A CEO of Nestle once said that water is not a basic human right but a commodity which can be traded. Oh yeah? Let’sput people like him without water for a few days and see what he thinks then.
These guys are well paid prostitutes. Even the 300% corrupt EU commission advises against selling water companies. I can hear the ‘credit’ columns pinging in “private” bank accounts all over Switzerland.