Aigües de Barcelona now manages and controls up to 93% of the urban water supply in 23 municipalities and thus 9 out of 10 customers depend on water supply by the AGBAR group. [1] It was shown that this private management is associated with low performance (leakages in the network are 30% greater and investment is 15.5% less than in the public sector) and that financially the management of the private company results in relatively high costs of water management (high levies and fees charged by the administrations in exchange for privatizing the service, exorbitant salaries for the administrative councils and financial spending not associated with water delivery). As a result, more than half of the water bill in Barcelona is filled with unnecessary or illegitimate costs which are not related to water services [25]. Further estimates revealed that AGBARs water rates are more expensive than in neighboring towns with public management such as El Prat de Llobregat and Barbera. 

As a result, a part of the costs is financed at the expense of consumers through taxes included in the water bills. This part of the bill represents approximately 3% of mean family budgets and eventually build a greater proportion of the bill than the service itself. This development can affect lower-income households of the central city and surrounding towns relatively more [2]. 

In the Spanish context, this is a severe condition since 17% of the population suffer from energy poverty, meaning frequent difficulties of paying their electricity, gas, or water bill [8]. In Barcelona, over 120,000 people have been found to be suffering from this specific kind of poverty related to access to water. These cases of water cut-offs mostly occur where water services are privately managed: 75% of municipalities with private services cut off water supplies for unpaid bills, whereas in the municipalities where the service is public that proportion falls to only 8% [25]. 

Civil society activists in Barcelona, including the NGO Enginyeria sense Fronteres (Engineers without Borders) and the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), are challenging this private management and fight for public water in their city. They founded the Plataforma Aigua es Vida in 2011 (Water is Life platform) [11]. The platform was built by a wide variety of civil society organizations: neighborhood associations, trade unions, environmental and international solidarity organizations. Its aim is to advocate for the public sector to decide on water policy and control the entire water cycle in Barcelona and all of Catalonia, including civil society participation and oversight to ensure the quality of the service and democratic governance. The platform is actively campaigning against the role of the private sector in the management of water and sanitation and especially the monopoly position that AGBAR holds [10]. 

The 35-year integral water cycle concession for greater Barcelona to the largest private operator without an open tender is facing concerted opposition from competing private sector water operators (Aguas de Valencia) as well as NGOs and associations. Critiques are based on the lack of transparency, missing auditing by external actors of asset distributions as well as the precarious legal position of the operations themselves [3]. 

In March 2016, a judgment of the Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) canceled the public-private partnership contract for water supply to 23 municipalities in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, arguing that there is neither a legal base, economic reasoning or technical base for the companies activities [15]. AGBAR has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Spain to override the ruling [7]. The court ruling by the TSJC passed to the Supreme Court of Spain, which has the obligation of reaching a final verdict for the case [9]. As a result of years of citizen movement campaigning for access to basic rights and against the corruption of traditional political parties, the election in 2015 brought the political group Barcelona en Comú into Barcelonas City Council [7]. The group incorporated among leftist parties such as Podemos (resulting partly from the anti-austerity movement), also parts of the above-mentioned civil campaigns, and implemented remunicipalization demands into their agenda. The said agenda specifically aims to establish democratic and transparent assessment, debate, and decision structures regarding preferred public interest while also involving workers unions [4]. Political contestation by Barcelona En Comu started with a motion in 2016 to analyze and concentrate on direct public management of the water cycle. Subsequently, most leftist groups of the Barcelona City Council voted in favor [14]. This process can be seen as an important step forward towards establishing an agenda to remunicipalize water services in the metropolitan area. AGBAR took a counter position to the plan and decided not to co-operate and did not provide any corporate or technical information. [7] 

In 2017, Agua es Vida and Enginyeria sense Fronteres initiated a Citizens' Initiative with the objective of a citizen consultation on water management. The petition collected more than 25,000 signatures, showing a more than sufficient number of voices for calling for a referendum on water management in Barcelona. The petition proposed the following question to citizens: "Do you wish water management in Barcelona to be public and with citizen participation?". AGBAR started several legal and administrative appeals and leveraged all its connections in the economic and political establishments to prevent the referendum from taking place [6]. Also, the company launched a huge marketing operation including advertising space on local TV, radio, and billboards and sponsoring community initiatives in order to improve its image [8]. Initially, the local law allowing such public consultations fell short of the necessary support in the plenary session held by the Barcelona Council. Effectively this was due to formal issues regarding the nature of the motion Barcelona en Comu started not of the content itself [12]. The local referendum on remunicipalization of water was postponed to the next electoral cycle [6].

Despite the failure, the Citizens' Initiative achieved the consolidation of social movements in favor of a public and democratic management model as a response to the current model. Hence, the Movimiento por el Agua Pública y Democrática (MAPiD - Public and Democratic Water Movement) was born. MAPiD engages in activism in order to guarantee public, democratic water management in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. Therefore, the movement is working on the creation of a water observatory in the AMB and also a citizen's parliament to increase democratic participation of water management in the AMB [25].

Despite losing percentage points, Barcelona en Comu managed to win the 2019 election and built a government with the Socialists' Party of Catalonia [24]. In 2019 judges voted in favor of AGBAR, legitimizing the legal status of the mixed capital company.  Following the highest Spanish court, the TSJC cannot be seen as a legal base for expropriation but does also not exclude this option. In Summary, it can serve as a basis for the application of the preceptors of exception (to the publicity of the procedure of awarding and free competition) [15].

In 2020 SUEZ announced plans to sell major parts of AGBAR assets in Spain despite overall unclear market conditions, reluctant investors as well as its rather stable economic situation of income revenues in times of crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic (public concessions with local governments and permanent water demand by citizens) [18]. Reasons for this disinvestment strategy for the following years can be seen in a general plan to reduce the company’s debt and to take financial advantages of a short-term selling process based on the stability and attractive investment AGBAR offers [20]. 

Aigua es Vida on the one hand claims that AGBAR increases tariffs to create a higher value for the company before selling it on international markets despite the difficult situation for many customers. On the other hand, MAPiD is pushing the AMB to urgently prevent the company from taking advantage of the crisis and stresses that the situation showed the necessity to employ all resources towards the remunicipalization of water. 

Therefore,  social movement actors appeal to the AMB to reduce tariffs and the city council to actively address the unjust decision of the Spanish Supreme Court that is incompatible with the will of 80% of the metropolitan population [21]. In the face of the Covid-19 crisis and the hygiene and sanitation crisis, these actors also reached out against national lobby groups of powerful water companies and demand the Spanish state and government officials via the Red Agua Pública (RAP) to acknowledge the human right to water and to implement a sustainable, transparent and democratic water supply system. They invoke national Law 8 and 11 of March 2020 which guarantee the human right to water for vulnerable social sectors or people with risk of social exclusion (RD law 8/2020), as well as those who, due to the COVID-19 crisis and its consequences, are potentially vulnerable (RD law 11/2020) [22].