Press Releases

Call of the European Water Movement for European elections

The European Water Movement is an open, participatory and pluralist network of social movements, organizations and committees, and trade unions whose aim is to strengthen the recognition of water as a commons and water and sanitation access as universal fundamental right. We are united in the fight against the privatization and the commodification of this vital resource, as well as in the promotion and the implementation of a public and collective management of the water and sanitation services, based on democratic participation of citizens and workers.

Since its foundation in 2012 the members of the European Water Movement have played a significant role and have engaged in advocating for water justice and the recognition and implementation of the human right to water and sanitation at EU, national and local level.

Our members are based in: Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Serbian and Bosnian organizations recently joint us.

The European elections in May 2019 are a crucial moment for the European Water Movement to get in touch with candidates: we call you to take a position in support of the human right to water and sanitation, commit to our values and promote policies that recognise water as a commons.

HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER

Seven years since the achievement of the first ever European Citizens Initiative, in which the European Water Movement played a key role, but we are still waiting for a real implementation of the human right to water and sanitation in the EU and the member states. It is a fundamental issue for the European Water Movement and its members, we ask you to commit to support it.

We also demand that all European water laws explicitly mention the recognition of the human right to water and sanitation, and water as a commons.

The lack of recognition of the human right to water and sanitation is reflected in a diverse range of policies at EU level where MEPs support is crucial.

-- DRINKING WATER DIRECTIVE

The recast of the Drinking Water Directive voted by the European Parliament does not include or recognise the human right to water, while the European Commission pretended that this was one of the aim of the recast. We call on MEPs to scrap the current text and reformulate a more ambitious proposal reinforcing art 13 European Commission's draft. We also call for a more effective approach to chemical substances like PfAs or PfOs and microplastics.

-- WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE

Clean water is essential to life, and this requires protecting water bodies. The Water Framework Directive, key legislative instrument for water protection, has to be continued after 2027. The upcoming fitness check must include a concretisation of the prohibition of water deterioration and strengthen effective enforcement mechanisms. Also, recital 1 needs to be strengthened according to the demands of the millions of citizens expressed by the Citizens' Initiative Right2Water: water supply and management of water bodies not be subject to ‘internal market rules’.

Letter of support from the European Water Movement to the Mesopotamian Water Forum

With this letter, the members and allies of the European Water Movement express their support and solidarity to the people organizing the Mesopotamian Water Forum, a civil society forum on the alternative management of Euphrates and Tigris rivers and their tributaries in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran that will take place between 6 and 8 April 2019 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan region of Iraq.

All over the world there are examples of damages caused by dams and hydropower plants. Evidence is well documented and international network of people fighting against these damages are ever growing. Therefore, the fight against dams might be considered as a global fight.

The European Water Movement is part of this international network defending the rivers, the territories and the communities linked to them.

Solidarity letter to the Save the rivers demonstration in Belgrade

Dear friends from the Balkans,

We see the demonstration today 27 january 2019 in Belgrade as a great step forward for the construction of a continental social movement for water as a common, for the promotion of the human right to water and for the protection of the environment against the selfish interests of some that want to destroy it only for their benefit.

The movement to defend rivers of Stara planina (Odbranimo reke Stare Planine) is for us the same struggle that our members do in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Germany, Ireland… We encourage you to continue and we support the efforts to create a wider organization for the promotion of water as a common, for a more democratic water management and for the human right to water. In that sense the creation of the group Pravo na vodu (Right to Water) makes us full of joy!

Forward in the struggle and all our support!

A private equity fund buys Indáqua

Translation in English of a STAL (Sindicato Nacional dos Trabalhadores da Administração Local e Regional, Empresas Públicas, Concessionárias e Afins) press release.

Lisbon, 1 February 2019

STAL denounces the public water trade

In 2016, the portuguese construction group Mota-Engil, majority shareholder of Indáqua, the other shareholder being the German insurance group Talanx, sold its stake to the Israeli group Miya for € 60 million.

After three years, Indáqua, one of the largest private water service concessionaires in our country, is the target of a new transaction, bought this time by the International Private Equity Fund, Bridgepoint, ignoring the amounts involved in this business.

A business which, as STAL has always denounced, confirms that the financialization and growing dominance of foreign capital in the water sector, an inseparable consequence of privatization, would be a matter of time, as in all sectors open to privatization.

Vote on Jefta in the European Parliament

Dear MEP,

The EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement (JEFTA) negotiations were launched in March 2013. Between 10 and 13 December the plenary of the EU Parliament is planned to vote on the agreement.

JEFTA is the biggest trade agreement ever concluded by the European Union, with a country which GDP is three times higher than the one of Canada - the party for the previous agreement, CETA, that has served as a model for JEFTA according to the European Commission.

While CETA had included a number of shortcomings for water resources as well as for public water and wastewater management, the provisions of JEFTA even fall short of CETA. Additionally a considerable amount of power will be transferred from the EU Parliament to highly intransparent committees.

Unlike in the CETA Agreement (Art. 1.9), there is no article on "rights and obligations relating to water" in the JEFTA Agreement. This article, although insufficiently, excludes water "in its natural state" from becoming a market commodity and, although also insufficiently, preserves the rights of public authorities to decide independently how to allocate water resources.

Because of CETA's shortcomings on water some member states had insisted on including clarifications on water in the - legally not binding - CETA Joint Interpretative Instrument (No. 11, p. 8). Especially the declaration of Slovenia to the Council minutes highlights CETA's deficiencies and stresses the right of Slovenia to limit or cancel the awarded water rights (No. 23 p. 18). All this is missing in the JEFTA agreement.

We remind you that water is essential for life. In times of water shortages becoming a widespread phenomenon also in the EU we have to regard anyone approving JEFTA as acting highly irresponsibly.

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