Challenges to Slovakia and Poland health policy decisions: use of investment treaties to claim compensation for reversal of privatisation/liberalisation policies

Investment treaties, and possibly the EU Treaty itself, are being used by multinational companies Penta and Eureko to try and force the Slovak government to pay compensation for reversing health privatisation and liberalisation policies. Similar action has been used against the Polish government by Eureko to win compensation worth nearly 2 billion Euros and a policy commitment to further privatisation

Financing water in Northern Ireland - a critique and an alternative

A critique of the proposed corporatisation of water in Northern Ireland, identifying unnecessary costs including £54m. costs of restructuring and £48m. dividends, with alternative requiring no new charges

Unhappy returns to investors in private equity

Private equity firms take large profits through fees but do not deliver exceptional returns to investors such as pension funds. Publicised returns ignore many 'living dead' funds, and the impact on investors of the PE firms own fees

Private equity, productivity and earnings

A detailed study in the USA shows that workers experience a relative fall in earnings after a takeover by private equity. Also, companies bought by private equity are at great risk of defaulting on their debts in the next 2 years

Infrastructure, the crisis, and pension funds

Infrastructure investment has been an important element in the economic stimulus packages introduced to try and deal with the effects of the recession. It is reinforced by the need to develop sustainable energy sources, and by the development needs of countries in the south. Public sector finance – tax revenues and bonds – remain the main way of financing such investment. The use of PPP projects to finance and operate infrastructure services, and the development of infrastructure funds as a way of investing in them, are both dangerous and unnecessary

Healthcare: rejection of privatisation and patient fees in Central Europe

Since 2006, there have been successful campaigns against commercialisation of public health services in the four central European countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

Evaluating network services in Europe: a critique of the EC Evaluation of the Performance of Network Industries

A critique of the EC evaluation of network industries and the Copenhagen economics report on the impact of liberalisation

Trade unions and reform of public utilities: international perspective

An overview of international and EU experience with privatisation of relevance to Russia and other eastern European countries

State aid and public services in Europe: the limitations of the EC package

This critique of the EC 2005 proposals on state aid and the implications for public services presents the historical and legal context, their impact on the expansion of private sector activity in the market for public services, a critical analysis of the proposals, and a discussion contrasting the route of encouraging competitive tendering with the possibility of exempting public services operating in the general interest