WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

liberalised because different suppliers would not be allowed to pump
their water through the same pipelines for reasons of hygiene. While
the mayor himself talks about a “material privatisation”, Stuttgart’s
leading councillor, Michael Föll (CDU), who sits on a further 30
advisory and regulatory boards, continues to reassure the public in
an unflinching manner, as he did in the Stuttgarter Wochenblatt in
June 2004: “Nobody can buy or sell water in Germany. Stuttgart City
Council did not sell the town’s drinking water three years ago. Our
constitutional law prohibits this even.”
6.4 Signs of the Decline of Political Culture
The sell-out of municipal infrastructure heralded in a new phase in
the decline of political culture. If we study the chronological order of
events and the modus operandi of the protagonists, we cannot help
suspecting that, in the course of many years, politics and the business
sector have become inextricably entangled in one another in Baden-
Württemberg – and Stuttgart in particular – because politicians have
been performing parallel duties in government offices and on supervisory
and advisory committees. For years, the transferral of public property
into the hands of private companies had been carefully planned in
backrooms, without any participation by the townspeople and using
means that are not readily comprehensible. Those directly responsible
were spurred on not least of all by their own personal interests in the
form of consultancy contracts and supervisory mandates. Behind all
of this lies a structural deficiency: the power of elected politicians has
not been defined clearly enough, adequate restrictions have not been
put in place, the public is no longer able to amend the situation when
things go wrong, and opportunities for “white corruption” provide
politicians with almost unlimited sources of secondary incomes. 20
In May 2004, Mayor Schuster wrote a letter to the Stuttgarter
Wasserforum, striking back at criticism expressed by the group: “You
will understand why I am protesting about your contentious remarks.
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