Jerry van den Berge recently joined the Blue Community as a Blue Ambassador. He just had his PhD thesis approved under the title «Water is a public good, not a commodity!: Social movements’ struggles and strategies against privatization of water services in Europe». We talked with him about his research – and looked beyond.
Jerry, first of all: Congratulations on successfully defending your PhD thesis! In your research you did an in-depth review of the last 25 years of the European struggle against water privatization, analyzing not only the European campaign but also the campaigns in Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.
Thanks, Roland! It was the last 15 years that I looked at, starting from the idea that came from EPSU, the European Public Services Unions, to use the tool of a European Citizens’ Initiative that was introduced by the European Commission in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. This tool says that “if a group of citizens from at least 7 member states manages to collect over one million signatures from at least 7 member states, they can put an issue for legislation on the EU political agenda”. The tool is meant to increase citizen participation in EU politics. So, EPSU decided to test this tool. I worked in EPSU at that time and I had the task to set up such a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). As an issue we saw that privatization of water was a huge problem (as shown in the UK) and a threat to countries that have a good public water supply, since EU policy was only about introducing and extending markets and thus promoting privatization of public services. To challenge this policy, we decided to propose “to implement the human right to water and sanitation in European law”. We gave three ways that this could be done: by guaranteeing access to water for all in the EU; by stopping liberalization (and consequently privatization) of water services, and by doing a bigger effort to achieve global universal access to water for all.
The “Right2Water” campaign and the movement that arose from the campaign managed to stop (and even reverse) the trend of water privatization in Europe, but not in the way that I imagined. There was hardly any action in the UK and very little in the Netherlands and on the contrary, there was a lot of action in Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and surprisingly in Greece and Spain. The unexpected campaign results were for me a reason to do this research. In the last two countries, I thought that people had other, bigger worries (like losing their jobs) than defending public water services but it appeared that they realized that water is fundamental: WATER IS LIFE. It was heartwarming to see for example that amid the Greek crisis as consequence of the bailout, the workers in the Thessaloniki water company EYATH made their company a Blue Community.
You have also looked deeply into your own life and campaigning, having been actively involved in Dutch trade union work and then coordinating and leading the European Right2Water campaign. What do you take away from this research for yourself?
What I have learned from doing this research is that it is possible for me to be an activist- researcher. I used to think of activism and research as different worlds that can benefit and learn from each other, but should not get mixed up. I always thought that I was an activist and I could not be a researcher. When I had left the trade union movement, I thought that it would be possible to become a researcher, since I was no longer an activist. Now I know that it is important and useful to take a position when you are a researcher and, more importantly, all researcher do so, also those that claim to be neutral and objective. Every researcher has a political view that colors his/her research. It is good to make this explicit. I was happy to do my research at the Water Resources and Management department in Wageningen University and had a professor that taught me about political ecology. I think this offers a much better perspective and understanding of water governance as an issue of social and environmental justice. As a researcher that supports human rights and social justice you should side with the marginalized that experience injustice and that cannot enjoy their full human rights. Too many researchers that claim to be neutral actually side with the powerful and support the status quo, this way sustaining injustice.
(An example of this neutrality claim, unfortunately also used by universities, we are witnessing at the moment in relation to the Palestine occupied territory. Wageningen University continues collaboration with Israel state universities under the guise of neutrality, but this way it is legitimizing the occupation and the apartheid regime over Palestinian territory by Israel.)
The epilogue to your thesis is entitled «The struggle continues to put public water back where it belongs». You mention the disaster that private water companies have caused and continue to cause in England and Wales, but also the decision of the city of Lyon last year to take its water back into municipal hands. Where are we today in this struggle at the European level?
It is difficult to see where we are at the moment since several developments are happening at the same time and alongside of one another. A positive development is the growing awareness among municipalities and regional governments that take their role in water resource management like the city of Lyon. This development is taking place in Spain as well and in my view the Spanish water movement is showing a good example for other countries and movements. Finally, after many years of problems caused by the privatization of water companies, there is movement in the UK with a River Action Network that looks promising. People are reclaiming their rivers, that have been polluted and poisoned by the private water companies in the UK. The government finds itself in a difficult situation as the private companies claim to be bankrupt so they “cannot pay for the pollution they have caused”. It’s saddening to see that if the government pays for the river clean-ups, and I think they must, they are actually paying for the profits that the water companies have given to their shareholders in the past decades. Public money has disappeared in private pockets. What the government should do in my view is to raise corporate taxation in order to make them pay for public investments. I doubt if the UK government dares to do so.
A worrying aspect in the struggle at European level is the discourse, dominated by right-wing governments. It still puts economic and private, business interests in the first place, but it is masked by social terminology like “just partnerships” for development. These so-called “just partnerships” are no different than the public-private partnerships that we have seen in the past decades and cover that what they really promote is privatization. The discourse is also dominated by the idea of competition. In a competitive Europe there will only be a few winners and many losers. That is what competition entails. To consolidate a European Union that benefits all, we need more and better collaboration, not competition. To safeguard the waters and water resources in Europe and ensure good quality water for all, we must cooperate in protecting and managing our water collectively and democratically. The struggle continues since the EU has not implemented any law that guarantees access to water for all, nor a law that prohibits privatization.
Your time at the Wageningen University is coming to an end. When and where will we hear from you again? Are you going to stay «immersed in the water»?
Water is life; it is the first requisite for a decent life in dignity, and yet, so many people do not enjoy a life in dignity. People have to fight big corporations across the world that are trying to capture and accumulate water resources for their profit-making. These people need support and solidarity to claim what is rightfully their water, their life. As a social justice activist, I would love to stay “immersed in the water” as you say, and give my share in solidarity support. However, the future is still open in what way that will be. I am immersed in the European Water Movement and I enjoy to be part of it but what comes next, in terms of a new job, is still a question mark.
You recently joined the Blue Community as an ambassador. What was convincing you to do so and how can the Blue Community contribute to water justice?
The ideas, vision and mission of the Blue Community have appealed to me since I first heard about it. So, I am really happy to join as an ambassador. What convinced me is that it departs from a bottom up approach, raising awareness and mobilizing people to defend water as a human right and a public good. It offers practical tools and measures that can be used and taken at local level. Raising awareness is so important. Here in the Netherlands still so many people take clean water every day for granted and don’t realize that it doesn’t get clean and doesn’t come out of your tap by itself. This is a public task carried out by local and regional governments and water authorities.
Blue Communities contribute to water justice by promoting and defending Water as a common good and collective responsibility. WATER IS LIFE and WE ARE WATER. This awareness must grow. Too many governments take over the business discourse, promoting water as economic good, a commodity, claiming that individuals must reduce their water use or reduce their plastic use for sustainability. This is masking the enormous impact that businesses have in using, by far, most water resources (70% of water is used in agribusiness, 20% by industries, 10% by households) and causing, by far, most pollution (Top polluters are Agriculture, Mining, and Chemical industries). In the Netherlands we are trapped in the business model in which businesses have to make profit at the expense of people or environment and we must get out of this trap. Blue Communities offer this way out with the three practical steps that can be taken at local level to protect our most precious natural resource: OUR WATER.
