Is Porto Alegre’s Water GATS-proof?
When responding to criticism, EU trade negotiators have repeatedly referred to articles in the GATS agreement which they claim exempt government-run public services.[15] In reality these exemptions are so ambiguous that no-one can predict how a WTO dispute panel would interpret them. This is certainly the case when municipalities have entered public-private partnerships with varying degrees of private sector involvement. The WTO secretariat has made one thing very clear: if services are supplied on a commercial basis, these are covered by GATS disciplines, whether the ownership is public or private.[16] This could have far-reaching implications for alternative models of water management that go beyond the clear-cut public-private divide. The participatory model of the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre would almost certainly not be protected by the GATS exemptions. Although the successful water utility DMAE is a not-for-profit company, it is financially fully independent from the local gov
