The European Commission Forgets About the Human Right to Water

Brussels – The European Commission has published the statistical results of the public consultation on the Drinking Water Directive [1], their flagship reaction to the first successful European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) on the human right to water and sanitation. According to Food & Water Europe, the review of this Directive, the only major initiative about water included in the Commission’s Working Plan for 2015, does not address the demands of citizens who support the human right to water.

David Sánchez, campaigns officer at Food & Water Europe said, “Despite their propaganda, the answer of the European Commission to the first ever successful ECI was just a compilation of already ongoing actions. And the public consultation on the drinking water directive simply does not address any of the demands of the 1,8 million European citizens that supported the initiative. Even worse, this is the only major action about water in their agenda for 2015.”

The demands of the ECI on the Right to Water [2] included implementing the human right to water and sanitation as approved by the UN in 2010; excluding water services from liberalization; and increasing EU efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation. The Commission only responded positively to the need to achieve universal access to water and sanitation.

Sánchez added, “With their attitude, the European Commission is doing its best to disappoint the expectations of the massive number of citizens that mobilized using this new tool, the ECI, implemented as a way to make the European Union more participatory and more accessible to the people. If the Commission continues in this manner, it will just broaden the gap between Brussels-based politicians and European citizens.

The European Commission is still analyzing the answers to the open questions in the consultation, the only space available to remind the Commission about the real demands of the ECI. The European Parliament is also currently working on a report on this initiative, which should be up for a vote in the coming months.

Contact: David Sánchez, Campaigns officer, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045 (land), +32 (0) 485 842 604 (mobile), dsanchez(at)fweurope.org

[1] The statistical report of the consultation can be checked here

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/pdf/results_drinking_water.pdf

[2] More information about the European Citizen’s Initiative on the human right to water and sanitation

http://right2water.eu/

Trading Away Public Water: Trade Negotiations and Water Services

Categories

WaterCommon Resources

Even as we are still resisting the last one, pushed by the European Commission through the Troika (together with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund), we are facing another huge risk from new trade agreements that the EU is negotiating at a multilateral scale. The most important and worrying are the nearly finished Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada; the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, also known as TAFTA) with the United States; and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), negotiated among 50 countries.

Where Do These Treaties Stand?

TTIP
The first round of negotiations between the United States and the EU took place in July 2013. The TTIP is not a traditional trade agreement aimed at reducing tariffs on imports. Both sides recognise that the main target is to remove “regulatory barriers”, which would include an attack on social and environmental standards and regulation. Another primary objective is to create new markets by opening up public services and public procurement contracts to competition from transnational corporations.

CETA
The negotiations for a trade agreement between the EU and Canada were launched in 2009, and they concluded in August 2014. The text includes chapters on regulatory co-operation, food and consumer product standards, technical barriers to trade, public procurement, trade in services and investment protection. The agreement still has to go through the approval process by both parties.

TISA
TISA is being negotiated by a self-selected group of 23 governments representing 50 countries, including the United States and the EU. These countries represent more than two thirds of global trade in services. Talks began in 2012, outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. The negotiations aim to allow foreign corporations the same access to domestic markets at “no less favourable” conditions than domestic companies. At the same time, the agreement could block local governments’ attempts to regulate, purchase and provide services.

What Are the Risks for Public Water?

Trade and investment protection agreements normally do not deal directly with how public administration is organised. But rules for international trade in services can have an impact on organisational autonomy in the area of water supply and sanitation. In this regard, the new wave of trade agreements tries to go further than previous negotiations. Trade agreements are so broad and complex that it is difficult to analyse every possible impact on public water management. Professor Markus Krajewski, from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, explains the risks from the TTIP in a legal opinion for the German Association of Local Utilities. Most of these risks can be applied to the other ongoing free trade negotiations.

Market-access commitments

Market-access commitments aim to prohibit or limit local monopolies, exclusive service suppliers or certain other economic criteria. For example, a law that allows only publicly owned monopolies to provide municipal water and sanitation, and that excludes public-private partnerships (PPPs), could be viewed as a restriction of market access. When negotiating market-access commitments, there are two possibilities. Under the “positive list approach”, all of the services that both parties want to include in the agreement must be listed. This is the EU’s traditional approach, and it would mean that water would be included in the agreement only if it is listed. But the TTIP likely will use a “negative list approach”, as the United States has done since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, which came into force in 1994), and which the EU and Canada have used in negotiating CETA. Under this approach, everything that is not listed is affected by the treaty (this is known as “list it or lose it”). There are two annexes where you can list exemptions: Annex I, for measures (laws or administrative practices) that violate obligations of the treaty, and Annex II, to include existing and future measures. One of the most important effects of these trade agreements is that once a sector is liberalised, there is no way back (this is known as the “ratchet mechanism”). Changes are allowed only if they are less restrictive than the measure listed. So, for example, when a country includes a publicly owned local water monopoly as an exemption in Annex I, if a local government decides to privatise it, it will not be able to reverse this decision later. This would block the possibility of re-municipalising the provision of water services, a powerful trend that more than 180 cities have pursued in recent years. To be able to retain regulatory and organisational autonomy, water should be listed in Annex II, as a horizontal exception for public services. But even in that case, the term chosen should capture water supply and sanitation, so that water companies cannot be challenged. The EU normally uses the term “public utilities”. Other terms like “environmental services” include sanitation, but not the supply of drinking water.

Competition, State-owned companies and public procurement

The TTIP also may include chapters on competition and state aid. Some leaked documents show that the EU would like to insert into the agreement provisions on state-owned companies (possible including local companies) and companies with special and exclusive rights. In addition, the EU would like to insert a chapter on public procurement. In line with the General Procurement Agreement negotiated at the WTO in 2012, it is possible that the EU might want to include new areas, such as service concessions or PPPs. As a result of public pressure from the European Citizens’ Initiative on the Human Right to Water, water was excluded from the EU Concessions Directive, on a temporarily basis. If the TTIP creates new obligations, big water companies will lobby strongly to re-insert water back into the directive.

Investor-state dispute settlement

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is one of the most worrying aspects of this latest wave of trade agreements. Under this mechanism, foreign companies can use private tribunals to sue governments if they deem that their profits or investment potentials are being affected by new laws or changes in policy. ISDS gives companies the power to contest — and potentially reverse — government decisions, and to seek compensation, possibly in the millions of Euros. Around the world, big businesses already have used the ISDS provisions in trade and investment agreements to claim dizzying sums in compensation against democratically enacted laws to protect the public interest. Reports show that European taxpayers have paid more than €3.5 billion to private investors due to similar clauses in previous trade and investment agreements. Argentina, meanwhile, has lost three cases against international investors when the country sought to take back water companies into public hands. Argentina had to pay $105 million to Vivendi (now Veolia) after authorities terminated Vivendi’s contract to supply water to Tucumán province when the company increased water rates by 104% and failed to invest adequately in the system, resulting in low water quality. Argentina also lost a case against Azurix (an Enron subsidiary) and had to pay the company $165 million when a water workers’ co-operative took over drinking and wastewater services in Buenos Aires Province after the company withdrew from the contract. Argentina lost a third case against Suez, AGBAR and Vivendi after the city of Buenos Aires opted to re-municipalise its water company because of concerns about water quality, lack of wastewater treatment and mounting tariffs. At a time when public authorities are increasingly regaining control over previously privatised water services, ISDS presents a serious threat. ISDS is included in CETA, the TISA and the TTIP, and is one of the most controversial chapters. For the TTIP alone, the European Commission received 150,000 replies to a public consultation about ISDS.

Is Water on the Negotiation Table?

Actually, it is impossible for the public to know exactly what is being negotiated in these agreements. CETA negotiations were completely secret, and the text was published only as a final document, in September 2014. The TTIP also is being negotiated behind closed doors, and more than 150 civil society groups on both sides of the Atlantic have denounced its absolute lack of transparency. Even the European Ombudsman has opened a consultation about transparency and public participation in the negotiations. In response to public pressure, the European Commission has announced its commitment to “open the windows”, in a move that is clearly not sufficient to guarantee real civil society engagement and an informed debate. The same secrecy applies to the TISA negotiations. The European Commission’s official position is that, “the EU has no intention of negotiating the right of local governments to provide public services such as the water supply” But in recent years, this official “neutral position” of the European Commission with regard to water management has shown to be not true. The Commission, as part of the Troika, has admitted that it imposes water privatisation conditionalities as part of its “rescue” package to countries affected by the crisis. Moreover, in its response to the European Citizens’ Initiative on the Human Right to Water, which collected nearly 2 million signatures across Europe, the European Commission lost an important opportunity to explicitly exclude water from the TTIP negotiations. Based on a preliminary version of the TTIP services offer from the EU, which was leaked in June 2014, drinking water services seem to be excluded, although sanitation and other water services remain within the scope of the agreement. The European Commission continues to deny that public services are on the table, but the lack of transparency and the experiences with other trade agreements are not reassuring. Moreover, analysis from trade unions shows that the existing public service exemptions in previous trade agreements have limitations, particularly in their scope and level of protection. This is in part because of the lack of legal and conceptual clarity, but also because the agreements do not seem to be flexible enough to accommodate changing political and social approaches towards public services. In general, the existing provisions do not offer public services a sufficient level of protection from the impact of the obligations of trade agreements.

Lessons Learned From CETA

During early negotiations for CETA, leaked texts showed that the EU wanted the treaty to cover all water services, including drinking water, as it had done in previous trade negotiations. In another leaked document, Canada’s offer showed that water services were not excluded from the negotiations. The final text of the agreement, leaked in August by a German TV station and analysed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, explicitly exempts water resources from CETA. With limited exceptions, however, the agreement treats water like any other tradable good, and the delivery of water like any other commercial service. After consider¬able public pressure to exclude water services from the agreement, Canada and the EU have taken broad Annex II reservations for market access and na¬tional treatment obligations with respect to the collection, purification and distribution of water. In practice, this means that Canadian and EU governments, including municipalities, are free to privatise or partially privatise public water systems as they see fit. But they are less free to re-municipalise those private services in the future if service levels are inadequate or if the private service becomes too expensive. The market-access reservation would give governments the ability to re-instate public monop¬olies, but investors have new rights to challenge the same decision through private investment tribunals. Another threat to public water comes from CETA’s procurement chapter. The commitments as they appear in the leaked text are confusing and ambiguous, but on the Canadian side, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives contends that at least some water services by local governments and utilities are covered. This will likely give private water compan¬ies a “foot in the door” to establish and expand the private delivery of what should be a universal right: affordable, publicly delivered water and sanitation services.

Conclusion

The experience with CETA shows that despite politicians denying it, water was on the negotiation table. It also proves that broad public mobilisation can stop the worst impacts of such an agreement. But even when civil society manages to keep sensitive sectors like water out of an agreement, it is extremely hard to block all the possible damage that such treaties can mean for a model of public and democratic water management. With CETA in the process of being approved (or not) and the TTIP and the TISA under negotiation, this new wave of trade agreements represents a major threat to many of the victories that civil society has achieved in the last few decades. Keeping and recovering public water management and making the human right to water a reality are key reasons to campaign against these free trade agreements.

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European Commission fails to take real steps towards the recognition of the Human Right to Water

Categories

Food

The European Water Movement regrets that the European Commission decided not to take real actions, ignoring 1,9 million citizens

Brussels – The European Commission (EC) made public today the communication on the European Citizen’s Initiative on the Right to Water. The communication fails to respond to 1,9 citizens asking for a legislative provision excluding water and sanitation from “internal market rules” and liberalization. The EC’s reaction is lacking in real legislative proposals, and it boils down to a compilation of already ongoing actions plus the announcement of a public consultation on the drinking water directive whose outcomes will not be binding.

While the Commission acknowledges the importance of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation and it confirms water as a public good, the EC fails to propose legislation that recognizes this right. The Commission also commits to promote universal access to water and sanitation in its development policies, including the promotion of public-public partnerships.

Water and sanitation services were excluded from the concession directive thanks to public pressure, but the Commission has not committed in its Communication to explicitly exclude these services from the trade negotiations (such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP).

The answer of the European Commission to the first European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) to achieve the required support will not reassure European citizens who question the democratic legitimacy of the European institutions. The European Water Movement (of which Food and Water Europea makes part) considers that overall the Communication does not address the actual demands to guarantee the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, and implies a bad precedent for the future of the ECI mechanism.

Water privatization remains a very concrete menace in the EU. In countries like Greece and Portugal, the Troika is pushing for water privatization, and more and more citizens are being deprived of water access in municipalities where water supply is managed by private companies. In line with the signatures collected for the Initiative, citizens are fighting against water privatization across the EU, with many examples of massive mobilizations in Italy with the 2011 binding referendum, the local consultations in Madrid and Berlin, more recent mobilizations in El Puerto de Santa María (Spain) and upcoming local public consultations in Thesaloniki (Greece) or Alcazar de San Juan (Spain). 

Water should be a commons, not a commodity. The European Citizen’s Initiative expected the European Commission to propose legislation implementing the Human Right to Water and Sanitation as recognized by the United Nations, and to promote the provision of water and sanitation as essential public services for all. The European Water Movement will continue to support local struggles in places such as Thesaloniki or Alcazar de San Juan to ensure that water is declared a common good. And it will remind candidates in the elections for the European Parliament of the importance of recognizing that water is a human right, to concretely act towards its implementation and to avoid liberalization and commodification of water and sanitation services. 

For more information:

David Sanchez, dsanchez(at)fweurope.org, +32 485842604

Caterina Amicucci, camicucci(at)recommon.org +39 3498520789

The European Water Movement is an open, inclusive and pluralistic network of movements, social organizations, local committees and unions whose goal is to reinforce the recognition of water as a commons and as a fundamental universal right, an essential element for all living beings. We are part of the global water justice movement. We are united to fight against privatisation and commodification of this vital good, and to construct a public and communal management of water, founded on the democratic participation of citizens and of workers.

www.europeanwater.org

Organizations denounce Nestlé’s new human rights impact assessment as a public relations stunt

Categories

Water

Joint statement by Blue Planet Project, FIVAS, Food & Water Watch, and Public Services International

Brussels and Ottawa —Nestlé’s new human rights assessment, launched at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights last week, is full of holes say labour and civil society organizations, including the Blue Planet Project, FIVAS, Food & Water Watch, and Public Services International.

“The analysis is fundamentally flawed because it is a selective examination of corporate policy rather than corporate practice,” says Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project and chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Food & Water Watch.

Nestlé’s “Creating Shared Value” program is touted in the report as a strategy to address the needs of impacted communities, yet as Barlow notes in her newly released book, Blue Future, there are significant discrepancies between Nestlé’s so-called values and its actual practice.

“One key Nestlé ‘shared value’ is the need for conservation of the world’s water,” says Barlow. “But this has clearly not been transmitted to Nestlé Waters Canada, which recently appealed a decision by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to impose mandatory reductions on water takings in times of severe drought.”

Furthermore, although the assessment involves the Danish Institute for Human Rights, it is a far cry from an independent analysis on the human rights impacts of Nestlé’s activities. The parameters for the assessment were set by Nestlé and involved a limited set of criteria that overlooked key areas including the human right to water. In addition, the bulk of the assessment was carried out by Nestlé field staff and final data vetted by Nestlé headquarters and executives in the countries where operations were evaluated.

“The failure to examine Nestlé’s track record on the human right to water is not surprising given recent statements by its chair Peter Brabeck challenging the human right to water,” says Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. The company famously declared at the 2000 World Water Forum in the Netherlands that water should be defined as a need—not as a human right.

In 2012, among the numerous grievances against Nestlé in this area, the award-winning film Bottled Life documented the conflict between Nestlé and the community of Bhati Dilwan, a village in Pakistan where local leaders and members of the community have accused Nestlé of draining groundwater resources to produce its Pure Life bottled water. A recent SumOfUs petition denouncing Nestlé’s activities in Pakistan received over 346,000 signatures.

Barlow also points out that while the report commends Nestlé for providing human rights training for security personnel in Colombia, it makes no mention of the fact that in 2009 a number of labour and human rights organizations launched a campaign demanding that Nestlé be expelled from the UN Global Compact for trade-union busting and child labour in Colombia.

In November 2013, Colombian trade unionist Oscar Lopez Trivino became the fifteenth Nestlé worker to be assassinated by a paramilitary organization while many of his fellow workers were in the midst of a hunger strike protesting the corporation’s refusal to hear their grievances.

The organizations also denounce the growing role of Nestlé in shaping public policy through its involvement in multi-stakeholder bodies including the 2030 Water Resources Group, the UN Global Compact and the Global Water Partnership. 

“Nestlé has used its privileged position to promote greater private access to water resources and public water and sanitation services despite growing opposition to corporate control of water around the world,” says David Boys of the global union federation Public Services International.

Nestlé is currently the leading supplier of the world’s bottled water, including such brands as Perrier and San Pellegrino.

“Given the selective focus, limited scope and glaring omissions, the report cannot be seen as anything more than the company’s latest public relations stunt,” says Jorgen Magdahl of the Norwegian NGO FIVAS.

For more information, please contact:

Meera Karunananthan, Blue Planet Project, 613-355-2100, [email protected]

Gabriella Zanzanaini, Food & Water Europe, +32 488 409 662, [email protected]

European Groups Applaud Bern for Becoming First Blue Community in Europe

Categories

Food

Social justice, environmental, and labour organizations in Europe are applauding the city of Bern for taking a bold new step to protect water as a commons. Launched by the Blue Planet Project based in Canada, the Blue Communities certification requires municipal governments to pass legislation recognizing water as a human right and pledging to promote and protect public water and sanitation services.

Aqua Publica Europea, the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), Food & Water Europe, Public Services International and the Transnational Institute are hoping this will lead to many more Blue Communities throughout the continent. Having collected almost 2 million signatures within the European Union demanding the human right to water and sanitation through the European Citizens Initiative, civil society and labour groups hope local governments will adopt this municipal initiative throughout Switzerland and Europe.

The Blue Communities Project states that, “because water is central to human activity, it must be governed by principles that allow for reasonable use, equal distribution and responsible treatment in order to preserve it for nature and future generations.”

While a growing number of Canadian municipalities have become Blue Communities, Bern is the first city in Europe to receive a Blue Communities certificate. World-renowned author and water activist, Maude Barlow is in Bern to deliver the certificate to City Council during a ceremony to be held on September 18 at 9h00 at the Erlacherhof. Along with the city, the University of Bern and the Evangelisch-reformierte Kirchgemeinde Bern-Johannes Church have passed their own resolutions to become Blue Communities and will be receiving certificates.

To read Maude Barlow’s remarks, go to: http://canadians.org/sites/default/files/water/bluecommunities/Barlow-Blue Community-Bern.pdf

To learn more about the Blue Communities Project, please visit: http://www.canadians.org/bluecommunities

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For more information, please contact:

Gabriella Zanzanaini at: [email protected] or +32488409662 

Dylan Penner at [email protected] or +16137958685 (for interviews with Maude Barlow).

Civil Society Groups and MEPs call on Companies to Drop Bid for Public Water Company in Greece

Categories

Food

Brussels – Over 130 civil society organisations, trade unions and individuals from Greece, Europe and around the world have teamed up with 50 members of the European Parliament to send a letter to the bidders of the public water company in Thessaloniki urging them to drop their bid.

The group has sent letters to companies including the French multinational Suez Environnement, Greek groups Aktor S.A and Terna Energy S.A as well as the Israeli groups Mekorot and Arison Investment concerning their reported bids for EYATH, the Thessaloniki Water and Sewage Company.

Under conditions imposed by the Troika to reduce Greece’s debt, EYATH has been put up for sale by the Greek government against the peoples’ wish. The citizens of the city, the workers as well as the municipalities of Thessaloniki oppose the sale of their public water and have set up different campaigns to stop this privatization.

“While in Greece there is no precedent, the international experience has shown that the privatisation of water has often resulted in the skyrocketing of prices and in some cases in the deterioration of water quality. Although the trend in Europe is towards remunicipalization of our water systems, we are being forced to go the opposite way here,” says Maria Kanellopoulou of initiative Save Greek Water. “EYATH is the first case of water privatization that we need to stop to make sure it does not spread to the rest of Greece,” she added.

“Companies involved in water privatization have often found their reputations tarnished, their risks increased and their profits limited. The companies aiming to buy EYATH would be clearly basing their business model on opportunism and should take this as a warning sign of the difficulties to come,” said George Archontopoulos from the EYATH Workers Union.

“Last week the Eldorado Gold Corporation announced the suspension of production at the Halkidiki goldmine in Greece. This is another example of a company which is not wanted in Greece and which the people are prepared to fight against to stop the exploitation of one of their common resources. The residents have managed to stall the mine’s activities by a durable and dynamic resistance. This is the same situation we see for the protection of public water and EYATH in Thessaloniki,” said Gabriella Zanzanaini, Director of European Affairs for Food & Water Europe.

“50 MEPs from the Conservatives, the Popular Party, the Liberals, the Greens, the Socialists and the Left from 18 countries cosigned the letter. This massive participation shows that international and local opposition to the sale of water services will pose a toll over any company that takes part in these privatizations. Companies should make a profit from the trade of private goods, not from acquiring market control over public goods. The European Parliament is sending a clear warning to the Greek government that the privatization of water is neither welcomed nor helping Greece to exit the crisis,” said Kriton Arsenis, Greek MEP, who helped to circulate the letter in the European Parliament.

The groups support keeping the profitable water company in public ownership, where real participation of citizens and workers in the management of water can happen. Considering the current European context where over 1, 600 000 citizens have signed the European Citizens Initiative to protect the right to water and the European Commission’s recent removal of water services from the controversial Concessions Directive, these companies would be going against the tide if they push forward on their bid for EYATH.

Contact:

Maria Kanellopoulou, savegreekwater(at)gmail.com, +30 694 425 9916

Pablo Sanchez, psanchez(at)epsu.org, +32 474 626 633

Gabriella Zanzanaini, gzanzanaini(at)fweurope.org, +32 488 409 662

Kriton Arsenis, kriton.arsenis(at)europarl.europa.eu, +30 210 324 8222