VEOLIA WATCH

One of the largest actors on these markets is Veolia Environment, an international giant in the fields of water supply, waste disposal (where it was formerly known as Onyx), energy supply (Dalkia) and public transport (formerly Connex). The company is the largest private employer in France, and has specialized in taking over public services in all the areas mentioned and in all parts of the world. It has more than 320,000 employees in more than 70 countries, and a worldwide turnover of €45 billion (2007).
Along with another French company, Suez (formerly Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux), Veolia controls no less than 70 per cent of all the privatized water supply in the world (Hall, 2002, p. 6)! Both belong to a small cluster of multinational companies that seek to take over public companies over a broad spectrum. There is, however, not always the cut-throat competition between these two competing giants that one might expect. They cooperate on tenders within a number of areas by establishing joint ventures. How they cooperate on the same board in one town, yet keep tenders a secret from each other when competitors in the next town, is a problem we are not going to investigate further here.
In waste disposal, the world market is dominated by only four companies – including subsidiaries of the two French companies mentioned. A few years ago, the figure was eight, but the four others have been taken over by the remaining giants. In both energy supply and public transport, the same concentration is taking place. From scarcely owning a single bus outside France in the early 1990s, Veolia Transport has advanced to being the world’s largest private company in the public transport sector (Hall 2002, p. 7).
Just recently (in March 2011), Veolia Transport merged with another French-based major international actor in the field of public transport, Transdev. After the merger, this transport company has become a real giant, with 124,000 employees in about 30 countries and an annual turnover of just over €8 billion. The markets are systematically monopolized, something that naturally helps to weaken the competition the neoliberals are so eager to emphasize. The result is of course increased market control by these companies. Despite all rhetoric in the opposite direction, maximum competition is not precisely what the companies are yearning for. They want maximum profits – and monopoly profit does not differ from any other profit except that it is often larger.

Asbjørn Wahl, "The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State" (Pluto Press)

This is the company that pollutes Palestinian land and its meagre water supply on behalf of ethnic cleansers.