Water is a human right - English subtitles

German comedian Erwin Pelzig (played by Frank-Markus Barwasser) about the privatisation of European water supplies.
Taken from the satire programme "Neues aus der Anstalt",
broadcasted on 22.01.2013

Here is again the link in question:
http://www.right2water.eu/de

Europe? I want Europe, but still

I sometimes get desperate about it and just now

the French European Commissioner for domestic affairs, M. Barnier

wants to facilitate the privatisation of public water supply.

Water is still a common good, a good for everybody,

but that shall be changed.

Multinational corporations are already standing in line, this is a business

worth billions of dollars and double-digit return percentages.

However, Mr Barnier says that we should not be afraid about the water getting more expensive or worse

because it will all be regulated by the market. The market? Hey, water is

life, it is a human right, it is a common good and common property

and property entails obligations, at least it says so in the German "Grundgesetz" (= German Basic Law)

and using this property shall also happen to public benefit,

this is also in the "Grundgesetz". And if water is no longer public property, but property of

multinational corporations, then we can all guess whom

a market-listed corporation might feel obliged to, to the common well-being

or to the well-being of its stockholders and of the markets.

80% of Europeans do not want privatised water supply,

but still they want a Europe without frontiers

and without wars and Nazi-shit, they want peace,

they want food, they want water and they want to piss off this water on the toilet,

they want jobs, good jobs, and on Sunday, Europeans would like to relax

in the sunshine, play checkers while cultivating their prejudices,

and listen, if Europe fails, it won´t fail because of the Euro

neither because the European citizens are fed up with it,

it might simply fail because Europeans

are fed up with non-democratically elected EU Commissionners

who, during their visits to knocking shops in Brussels are bought by lobbyists who tell them the markets will fix anything.

One moment! I want Europe, I adore Europe and it is great that there are now

European citizens´ initiatives and now there is one initiative who wants to

prevent exactly that, privatisation of water supplies.

They need one million online signatures until autumn, it will not prevent privatisation completely but at least

it would mean that the EU Commission would have to discuss this topic again. So now I wanted to show the Internet address

of this initiative here, at the bottom of the screen, but

our internal lawyers said that serious public broadcasting stations like ours

must not show private or foreign Internet addresses.

This is neither censorship nor bad will, there are laws about this, but no problem for me,

because there is no problem for public broadcasting stations

when you show cars in the picture.

The problem is solved now!

Cheers! As to water.