The Vice President of the Association of German Cities, Lord Mayor Dr. Ulrich Maly from Nuremberg, said: "The Association of German Cities is committed to ensuring that municipal services of general interest are explicitly excluded from free trade agreements. This includes, in particular, public water and wastewater disposal, waste and ÖPNV, social services and the cultural sector.

According to Maly, citizens trust that these public services are managed and controlled by democratically legitimized municipal representative bodies. This is currently not the case with the CETA trade agreement.

The CETA free trade agreement dispenses with the positive list favored by the municipalities. A positive list would explicitly name all areas of responsibility that fall under the trade agreement. Public services of general interest could thus be completely exempted in a simple manner.

In contrast, CETA uses a negative list, i.e. it specifies areas to which the agreement should not apply. "Public utilities" are mentioned here.

This is a term that is not used in German public procurement law or state aid law and therefore allows for interpretations of the scope of application. This also applies to new services, regardless of whether they are provided digitally or in analog form.

Maly: "We want to eliminate the risk of unwanted privatization through the back door and comprehensively safeguard the municipalities' option to remunicipalize public services."