Water privatization in Europe: a rising phenomenon | EUROtoday

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The water? Public, however industrially managed. With exterior corporations underneath whole public management or with different formulation by which there are corporations which are majority managed by the general public however which additionally embody personal minority shareholders. The administration of the built-in water sector is a diversified world. That is, the water useful resource as an entire. Because what arrives in houses, corporations and ingesting fountains should undergo a management and purification course of earlier than being put on-line.

The level of the 2011 referendum

«Let’s be clear, water, as was mentioned within the 2011 referendum once we all voted, is public – said Ilvo Sorrentino, nationwide supervisor of Filctem Cgil -, however this doesn’t imply that it needs to be free regardless, additionally as a result of behind what arrives on daily basis there’s a system of companies and prices that concern ingesting water, the administration of networks, the management of reservoirs and aqueducts». Precisely because of this there may be the query of tariffs: «Managers cost the prices to make sure that water reaches houses and gives an environment friendly service».

Then there may be the case of Italy: «Our nation is in first place within the EU for volumes of water withdrawn for ingesting use, with round 150 cubic meters per inhabitant per yr – he argues -. Unfortunately, nonetheless, out of roughly 8 billion cubic meters of water injected into the community, 3.4 billion cubic meters are wasted: 42.2% of the whole. For this cause it’s essential that there’s an industrial administration upstream that brings collectively the service, the programming and the planning of the interventions”. No less important is another aspect that “fairly often isn’t considered”: the costs of the water service also include the fees for the disposal of sewage. «This activity also has a significant cost – continues Sorrentino – we must not forget that 13% of people, 7 million, are not connected to the sewerage system».

Different management

Today, service management is not the same everywhere. This is also highlighted in the annual report of the Utilitas Foundation with the support of Utilitalia and other institutions, entitled Blue Book 2025 integrated water service and extended water supply chain, according to which «only 54% of the population lives in territories in which the integrated water service is entrusted to a single manager, without direct management by the municipalities». Not only that, «the remaining 46% resides in areas where the governance of the service is still fragmented or not completely consolidated. Among these, around seven million inhabitants, equal to 12% of the population, are served by independent management, i.e. managed directly by the municipalities, often with lower standards and investments than industrial operators”. The crucial points are concentrated above all within the South and on the Islands, the place 82% of the municipalities not but reached by industrial administration stay.

The totally different managements

Then there are the totally different administration choices. An instance? «Let’s consider Rome, the service is assured by Acea which is 51% managed by the general public and the remaining by different shareholders – provides Ilvo Sorrentino -, however the majority is public. Furthermore, its industrial group permits it to hold out actions starting from guaranteeing the service to repairing highway leaks as much as the planning of interventions”. That is, the so-called long-term planning. Which concerns the study of solutions to avoid leaving cities or territories dry. “In Lazio we’re engaged on a sequence of interventions – he provides – exactly to forestall one thing related from taking place”. The participation of private individuals in the management of water resources, according to the trade unionist, must not be seen as privatization. «Only an industrial management of the entire system – he adds – allows us to design and program, even if there is no shortage of difficulties». Hence an opening towards the so-called hybrid formula with the entry of private individuals or, in any case, the management of the entire lot by companies controlled by the public but external. As happens in Sardinia, where Abbanoa, a company with public shareholders but under private law, manages the water service. «This is a company that can win the challenge of giving Sardinia water management entirely in public hands. In small steps it is becoming a highly respectable company with a decisive change of pace.” As for privatisation: «Our place has at all times been this – he underlines -: by no means the administration of water within the arms of personal hypothesis. We instantly made ourselves obtainable to succeed in this objective.”