Fitness check roadmap

All feedback sent to the European Commission will be summarized and presented to the European Parliament and Council, with the aim of feeding into the legislative debate.

Feedback by the European Water Movement

The coordination of water, agriculture and energy policies has so far been very weakly implemented at European and national level, thus preventing a return to a good ecological status of water bodies, while aggravating conflicts of use. This failure of policies coordination is attributable to the predominant influence of business lobbies within European and national institutions.

After the Blueprint to safeguard Europe’s water resources, the fitness check of the WFD and associated directives will look at the «effectiveness, efficiency, coherence» of these directives, especially regarding policies coordination, as part of the WFD review. This is the right step but what does the European Commission intend to do to prevent business lobbies sabotaging the whole process to their unique advantage as they have always done so far? We have examples of this when transposing these directives in almost all Member States. We are particularly concerned when we see that a «quantitative assessment of actual costs and benefits including impacts on business» with a «regulatory simplification and burden reduction» is put forward. Business lobbies are in favor of a regulatory simplification because they hope that it will allow them to more easily circumvent a certain number of constraints including environmental ones.

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In September 2015 Romanian Anti-Corruption Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against intermediaries acting on behalf of the private company ApaNova/Veolia, the provider of water services in Bucharest. Bucharest local councillors had allegedly taken bribes in order to approve tariff increases. The documents presented by the prosecutors showed how water prices doubled between 2008 and 2015 (a 125% increase). Further investigation in October and November 2015 led to the direct indictment of the company itself for an alleged tax evasion worth 5 million euro, among other accusations.

Bucharest privatised its water services in 2000 after a 2-year buffer period during which the concession procedure took place. The World Bank and the International Financial Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, acted as consultants. The decision to outsource the sewage and water services occurred in the context of poor water quality and sewage services provided by the then public company, Regie Autonome. This Company required investments of over 1 billion dollars, which the municipality claimed it could not afford to make.

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Another MEP-industry forum in need of investigation

"The Water Group's political expertise has always ensured a strategic approach. Whether on the link between water and biodiversity, the monitoring of the Water Framework Directive, or on the role of the private sector, your group has always been to the fore."

And with this quote the European commissioner for Environment, Maritime affairs, and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella, began his speech to the EP Water Group dinner on 18 November 2015. This group is no longer an officially-recognised intergroup (it was during the 2009-2014 legislature) but appears to now be an informal MEP-industry forum and it brings together MEPs, other decision-makers, industry and other 'stakeholders' to discuss matters relating to EU water policy. CEO has recently profiled – and criticised – such forums for the cosy relations between MEPs and big business that they can ferment.

However, more than in many other sectors, big business' involvement in water management is contentious because of the terrible track record of private companies in managing municipal water services and water resources. The 2013 European citizen's initiative (coordinated by EPSU, the European Federation of Public Services Unions) on the right to water attracted the support of nearly two million EU citizens to recognise water as a public good, not a commodity; to promote the provision of water and sanitation as essential public services for all; to ensure that water supply and management of water resources not be subject to ‘internal market rules’; and that water services are excluded from liberalisation.

So by bringing together MEPs and multinational water companies to discuss water issues, the EP Water Group is already on controversial territory.

Read more on the website of CEO

All we can do is plead for a regulator capable of keeping these voracious private companies under control.

Of all the privatisations carried out in Margaret Thatcher’s time, the one least popular with the public was the sell-off of 10 publicly owned water authorities to private companies. Government ministers defended the sale by explaining that rain did not simply fall from the sky and find its own way to where it was needed. They rightly pointed out that it requires a huge industry to get clean water through the tap into the home or the workplace and to take away dirty water and sewage, clean it, and pump it back again. The argument put forward at the time of privatisation, in 1989, was that private companies could carry out this work more efficiently.

This was a triumph of ideology over common sense. Though it is true that companies that compete in the marketplace have to be more efficient to survive, there is no market pressure on water and sewage companies. The customer cannot choose the supplier. Who they get depends on where they live: if it is Cornwall, it is South West Water; in Wales it is Dwr Cymru; in the North-west of England it is United Utilities, and so on. 

Nor can the customer haggle over price: they pay what the companies charge, or risk having their water supply turned off. To mitigate that problem, the government created Ofwat in 1989, a quango whose job is to set maximum prices and thus protect customers from being fleeced by these monopolies.

Read more on the website of The Independent