Today, the Stockholm community council in Sweden announced that the French company Veolia, which has been the current operator at Subway in Stockholm County for 10 years, lost the contract to MTR cooperation. The contract for the coming 8 years is worth 3,5 Billion EURO and has been the biggest ongoing public contract procurement process in Europe.
Although the county’s public transportation board ensured the decision was based on commercial factors, the debate about Veolias's involvement in a controversial tramway project in Jerusalem (Jerusalem light railway) has been intense in Swedish media.
The tramway connecting the Israeli west Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory has triggered discussions about Veolia’s ethical policy. Public protests against Veolia have brought attention to the dilemma of operating public services when you, at the same time, are involved in politically controversial activities.
As late as the day before the decision, the community council received lists with thousands of signatories from people demanding that the county council choose an operator who should not be associated with violations of international humanitarian law.
"This is clearly another sign of the importance of commercial actors not having their brand associated with unethical behaviour. In the case of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, we can already see a trend of international companies moving out their operations from settlements," says Joakim Wohlfeil at the Swedish development organization Diakonia.