WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

In October 2004, the Water Forum brought charges against Mayor
Schuster for using taxpayers’ money to print 300,000 flyers during
the heated phase of local election campaigning, in which he countered
arguments against the sale of the water supply, intent on conveying
the image of perfectly-organised public services. We found this
objectionable because the Federal Constitutional Court had ruled
that an office-holder is not allowed to use public money to finance
propaganda material in the crucial phase of an election. Schuster’s
immediate rival, the SPD party, had taken a more critical stance on the
water privatisation issue.
EnBW and the city council found themselves facing a further charge
when a full-page, four-colour advertisement for EnBW appeared in the
“Official Announcement” section of the Stuttgart Gazette. The council
counterattacked our accusation, saying that EnBW was legally required
to publicise certain details once a year relating to water purity. This
was what the company had done and the four-colour page had thus
been an “official announcement”. In both cases, proceedings were
abandoned.
At legal level, the Stuttgarter Wasserforum has made no real progress
to this day. Even its appeal to the Committee on Petitions in Baden-
Württemberg, demanding that the deal be reversed, was unsuccessful.
Every single point of concern about the legality of the sale, the evaluation
of the NWS shares as well as quality safeguards were finally dismissed
after a processing period lasting a whole year: “Stuttgart City Council
was acting within the framework of municipal self-administration when it
decided to sell its shares in the enterprise.”
The sections of the law governing public services in Germany are
so vague that it is impossible to know for certain what local authorities
are allowed to sell and what not. On top of this, the clandestine nature
of the privatisation contract does not allow anyone to investigate more
closely whether or not applicable law has been breached. Section 92
of the local government code in Baden-Württemberg states that public
property can only then be sold when it is “no longer required”. This
objection was also shot down by the Committee on Petitions: “A
violation of section 92 of the local government code has not been
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