[GATS/G8] Euro G8 told: 'stop the global water carve up'

Over 100 organisations from across the globe have today issued an 'Evian Water Challenge' to the leaders of the European nations that make up half of the G8, meeting on the shores of Lake Geneva later this week.

They are demanding that France, Germany, Italy and Britain halt their push to carve up the world's water services for the benefit of big business through a trade agreement being negotiated just across the lake from Evian at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva.

The statement was co-ordinated by Amsterdam based Corporate Europe Observatory and signed by NGOs from countries including all EU member states, the US, Japan, Ghana, Indonesia and Bolivia. It says that despite clear evidence of the negative impact of water liberalisation, the EU is demanding that 72 countries, including many developing ones, open their water sectors to European companies through negotiations on the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The Evian Challenge issued to the European members of the G8 is to use the water theme of this year's G8 as a opportunity to withdraw their demands for liberalisation of water services under GATS.

Clare Joy, GATS campaigner at the London based World Development Movement
today said: "The record of water liberalisation and privatisation around the world has been a disaster. Many developing countries and impoverished communities have rejected the idea of providing water for profit yet the European members of the G8 are pushing them into a trade agreement, lobbied for by business and negotiated in secret, that will lock in liberalisation regardless of the cost to the poor and vulnerable."

Alexandra Wandel of Friends of the Earth Europe today said: "The UN's
Millennium Development Goals commit all of us to work to provide clean water
and sanitation for all the world's people. Some members of the G8 seem
intent on undermining this noble aim by using it as an opportunity to boost
the profits of their water companies through the GATS”.

Notes
A full list of the signatories, the statement and more information on GATS
is available at http://www.gatswatch.org <http://www.gatswatch.org> or by email
from dave@wdm.org.uk

The EU's website states that GATS is "first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business". European service providers dominate the global water market. The world's top two private sector water companies, Vivendi and Suez (both French), control 70% of all private water services between them. The third largest is Thames Water, now part of German utilities conglomerate RWE.

Contact:
Dave Timms (WDM) on +44 (0)7711 875 345 or +44 (0)20 7274 7630
Olivier Hoedeman, (CEO) +31 20 6180297
Alexandra Wandel (FoEE) on +49 172 748 39 53 (m)

The EU Water Fund, to be officially presented at the Evian G8 Summit (June 1-3), seems more about corporate welfare than helping the world's poorest.
Read more in our the latest water info brief of Corporate Europe Observatory: 'Evian: Corporate Welfare or Water for All?' at http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/water/infobriefs.htm

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