UNISON CALLS FOR HALT ON WATER PRIVATISATION UNISON senior national officer for water Steve Bloomfield says “an unprecedented campaign of resistance” is required to protect public services. Under European Union (EU) competition and internal market laws public water services could be highly vulnerable - something the proposed constitution would be powerless to stop. Bloomfield notes EU member states “have operated under a cloak of secrecy and have engaged in a bizarre process of negotiation among each other.” Discussions on “opening up” their own markets and those of other countries, he claims. Virtually nothing is known about this “obscure and secret” process, as he describes it, in which water and other public services are being offered on a plate to international companies. European Commissioner Pascal Lamy is involving large water companies in a “wholly unacceptable way,” in drawing up water regulation, according to Bloomfield said. Trade unions are excluded from this process. Though 95% of world water supply remains in public hands, this high proportion is under “grave threat” while governments and international economic bodies continue to push the competition and privatisation agenda down developing countries’ throats.

The health of European public services is at stake with proposed new central legislation, as Bernard Conlon explains

A strong constitution

There are growing fears that big companies will be free to pillage public services in the expanding European internal market, as a result of the EU’s proposed constitution.

Since its July publication however, the document has raised so many Eurosceptic hackles, especially in the British press, has got more attention for issues like a European flag than some of the core implications for EU citizens and trade union members.

On the one hand the constitution, whose creation was overseen by former French President, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, recognises full-employment and the social market economy.

But on the other it has failed to anchor the principle of public service and universal provision – and that’s where the danger lies, say critics.

Because they represent broad political progress and nail down European enlargement, the trade union movement on a European level is in support of the constitutional move.

But the downside is in the light of this support discussing the future of public services (or Services of General Interest (SGI) as they’re called in Euro-speak) is therefore made more difficult.

And in the background, free-market thinking is on the rise in Europe, even among governments of the left. US and UK influence and pressure from big business on the continent - keen to gain windfalls from privatising formerly protected public services - is also having an impact.

Inside the European Commission the signs of this thinking are easily found. The Competition and Internal Market General Directorates, for instance, believe that all goods and services should be opened up to competition, in line with the GATS philosophy, regardless of their social role and value.

That’s not to say there’s not opposition to the market approach and possible erosion of public services. The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), representing 10 million workers across the continent, is leading this fight.

In September last year EPSU, together with the Brussels-based European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), made a joint submission to the convention along with three other European trade union federations.

Though a specific reference to public services protection was left out in the final draft, EPUS isn’t seeing this as a defeat. An EPSU officer speaks of the fight being taken on to a wider political stage during any referenda on the constitution in EU Member States.

Any trade unionist committed to the protection of public services needs to treat the EU constitution as about very much more than flags, anthems or federalism. The very future of public services and our jobs may depend getting them properly recognised as the debate – and ratification – continues.

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EURO TRADE UNION LEADER NOT GIVING IN Despite the failure to anchor Services of General Interest (SGI) (public services) in the European Union’s (EU) proposed constitution, European public service trade unionists remain upbeat. Ms Carola Fischbach-Pyttel, the General Secretary of the Brussels-based European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), to which UNISON is affiliated, acknowledges that that less had been achieved than hoped, but sees the way forward as through greater democratic control of company actions through the European Parliament and the recognition of social partnership. “Our main aim was recognition of SGI without being subjected to competition rules and the internal market. We see internal market rules creeping into social policy, environmental, and sustainable development fields. “These are policy goals that cannot be achieved through market mechanisms. The market can certainly be effective, but it is not the be all and end all. There are so many examples of market failure. We certainly would not want to repeat the experience on the European level of the privatisation of British railways,” she says. The EU “cannot be reduced to a free-market”. Guarding against this and greater free-market policies after enlargement is “a very crucial battle we have in front of us,” - especially with next year’s European Parliament elections.

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