The European Citizens Initiative (ECI) ‘Water is a Human Right’ has made history as being the first ECI in the European Union to have collected over one million signatures. This number was reached in early February 2013, showing that many EU citizens consider water and sanitation to be public services that should not be sold for profit. In fact, a large majority in many EU countries shares this opinion.
In 2011, more than 95% of Italians voted against the privatisation of water in the referendum. Opinion polls show that 82% of Germans want water supply to be public, managed by municipalities. In the Netherlands, the privatisation of water supply is illegal since 2004. The law states that drinking water services to consumers may only be provided by entities which are 100% public or publicly-owned. After almost 25 years of privatisation of water services in the UK, with very disappointing results, an opinion poll reveals that 70% of population want to re-nationalise the water companies. It is in this context that the ECI ‘Water is a Human Right’ managed to collect one million signatures within just four and half months.
The public outcry in Germany, Austria and other countries against the European Commission’s proposal for an EU Concessions Directive also played a key role in raising public awareness of the ECI. This EU Concessions Directive, which would also cover the water sector, would increase the pressure on municipalities to allow private water firms to bid on water management contracts. MEPs in a recent vote failed to exclude water from the Concessions Directive.
Jan Willem Goudriaan, Deputy General Secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) commented: “While hundreds of thousands are signing the Initiative and make clear they do not want water services to be subject to internal market rules, the EU prepares privatisation of public services such as water and sanitation through the backdoor.”
The ECI ‘Water is a Human Right’ demands that:
The EU institutions and Member States be obliged to ensure that all inhabitants enjoy the right to water and sanitation.
Water supply and management of water resources not be subject to ‘internal market rules’ and that water services are excluded from liberalisation.
The EU increases its efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation
– source tni.org