35 Amendments of Leopoldo LÓPEZ GIL related to 2021/2187(INI)
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 9 a (new)
Citation 9 a (new)
— having regard to the 2020 and 2021 ‘State of Food and Agriculture’ reports published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 14 a (new)
Citation 14 a (new)
— having regard to Directive (EU) 2020/2184 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2020 on the quality of water intended for human consumption (recast),
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 14 b (new)
Citation 14 b (new)
— having regard to the Commission communication of 19 March 2014 on the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!’,
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19
Citation 19
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas Principle 20 (‘Access to essential services’) of the European Pillar of Social Rights proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 17 November 2017 includes an express reference to the right of citizens to water and sanitation;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas the denial of the human right to water has repercussions on enjoyment of the right to health; considering that contaminated water, the inadequate management of urban, industrial and agricultural wastewater and poor sanitation are linked to the transmission of serious diseases and even death;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas the humanlack of respect for, protection of and compliance with the rights to water is linked toand sanitation often hinder the right to education; whereas children, in mostany cases girls, have to walk miles every day to fetch water, which prevents them from attending schoolmillions of children around the world from attending school; whereas many children stop going to school because of illnesses linked to contaminated water or to poor hygiene practices; whereas girls are also forced to drop out of school when they are unable to access gender-toilets appropriate toilets and manage their menstruation in a dignified manner their needs;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas, as indicated in the EU human rights guidelines on safe drinking water and sanitation, the human right to water and sanitation encompasses the dimensions of availability, security, physical accessibility, acceptability, quality and affordability and the principles of the human rights-based approach (non- discrimination, accountability, transparency, participation, etc.);
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas, according to FAO data from 2020, per capita freshwater availability hasd fallen by 20% over the past two decades; whereas population growth, agricultural intensification, urbanisation, the effects of climate change, environmental degradation, as well as certain unlawful and polluting practices in water use, are posing ever-greater water access problems in many regions;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas the ongoing climate crisis, withclimate change may cause increasing droughts, floods and torrential rains, is exacerbating inequalities in distribution of water; whereas floods and other water- related disasters account for 70% of alla high percentage of deaths linked to natural disasters;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas ‘water stress’ or water supply-linked vulnerability, defined by the UN as the point at which the supply or quality of water cannot be satisfied fully, can be a direct and indirect cause of displacement and migration; whereas, according to the UN’s water development reports, five of the world’s eleven regionwater scarcity is a relative concept, a social construct or the consequence of altered supply patterns, stemming, for example, from climate change; whereas, accountrding for two thirds of the global population, are currently experiencing water stresto the FAO, the growing trend of global water stress during the last 20 years reflects stress that is increasing in various regions of the world, with decreases in other regions of the planet unable to compensate for the increases; whereas, according to the UN’s 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Report, water scarcity could displace some 700 million people by 2030;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)
Recital K a (new)
Ka. whereas the illegal exploitation of natural resources by organised crime has a huge impact on the pollution of the entire region exploited and, depending on its location, may adversely affect the hydrological cycle;
Amendment 72 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas the vast majority – around 70% – of the world's fresh water is used for agriculture, while the remainder is divided between industrial (19%), mainly in the food, textile, energy, industrial, chemical, pharmaceutical, and mining sectors, and domestic use (11%), including human consumption;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital O
Recital O
O. whereas the abusive and often illegal extractive industries have contributed to the overexploitation of surface and groundwater resources, pollution and the destruction of glaciers, forests, wetlands, rivers and other vital water sources for human consumption;
Amendment 86 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital P
Recital P
P. whereas the textile industry counts among the sectors that consume the most water in the world, and whereas apparel and textiles are produced in some of the world's most water-scarce regions; whereas this industry is ranked as the second most polluting in the world and a large part of that pollution ends up in bodies of water; whereas the Commission plans to adopt, in the first quarter of 2022, the ‘EU strategy for sustainable textiles’, which sets out to help the EU to move towards a circular economy in which textile products are designed to last longer and be reusable, repairable, recyclable and energy efficient;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital V
Recital V
V. whereas since 6 December 2020 water has been traded on the Wall Street commodities futures market; whereas, in the words of Pedro Arrojo, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, ‘water has a set of vital values for our society that the market logic does not recognise and therefore, cannot manage adequately, let alone in a financial space so prone to speculation’; whereas the UN has warned that trading water on the Wall Street futures market is in breach of basic human rights;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Reaffirms the right to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, which is in turn fundamentalguarantees access to water for personal and domestic use, as is essential for the development of human dignity; highlights the fact that the right to water is a fundamental precondition for the developenjoyment of other rights, and as such must be guided by a logic grounded in the public interest and common good;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Underlines that enshrining the right to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right was a crucial milestone on the road to greater social and environmental justice; affirms, however, that progress in access to these rights is hampered by the low political priority given to the sector, poor implementation and monitoring of policies, underfunding, lack of accountability and gaps in public participation, particularly among the most marginalised in society;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Recalls the responsibility of states to promote and safeguard all human rights; reiterates, therefore, that states must ensure the affordability of universal access to safe drinking water in sufficient quantity and quality;
Amendment 123 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls that states that ratify a human rights treaty undertake to protect, respect and fulfil the commitments adopted in the international, regional and national framework for the protection of these rights; takes the view in this regard that the international community’s recognition of the right to water and sanitation must encompass protection and enforceability arrangements and, therefore, calls on the EU to promote protection mechanisms at international, regional and national level to ensure that upholding the right to water and sanitation is not optional for states but rather an enforceable right; recalls that the right to water means that water supply services must be affordable for all and that nobody should be deprived of access to them;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Calls on the External Action Service to require the non-EU countries with which it maintains human rights dialogues to promote the effective application of the right to water and to guarantee its affordability for the civilian population where this is not already the case and to monitor and evaluate the results in implementing this right;
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Maintains that the full exercise of the right to water depends on the preservation of biodiversity, and therefore demands that water management should respond primarily to social and environmental and social interests and not to those of the various sectors of the economyinterests;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Stresses that certain development models that favour vast projects and large- scale business activities undermine the availability and quality of water in all countries and increase competition for water and exacerbate other water-related conflicts;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Underlines that pollution and the excessive extraction of water resources by means of industrial activities or discharge are among the most commonly identified threats to the exercise of the human rights to water and sanitation;
Amendment 166 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Recognises the important work undertaken by environmental rights defenders, in particular those safeguarding the right to water, and roundly condemns the killings, abductions, torture, gender- based violence, threats, harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, criminalisation, judicial harassment, forced evictions and displacements carried out by numerous perpetrators, including governments and multinational corporations;(Does not affect the English version.)
Amendment 172 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recalls that indigenous people can play a vitaln important role for the sustainable management of natural resources and the conservation of biodiversity; asks the EU and its Member States to recognise and protect the rights of indigenous people’s rights (those who, complying with the rules, may potentially become environmental defenders and also condemns those who damage the environment) to customary ownership and control of their lands and natural resources as set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and ILO Convention 169, and to comply with the principle of free, prior and informed consent; Requests that the EU Member States which have not yet done so ratify ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Notes with concern that the lack of access to water and adequate sanitation has a devastating effect on women's rights, making it difficult for women and girls to lead safethe rights of women and children, making it difficult, on the one hand, for women to lead safe and healthy lives and, on the other, impacting the health of children and thealthy lives quality of the education they receive for their future development;
Amendment 196 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Stresses that companies worldwide must ensure that their activities do not encroach on the enjoyment of the human right of access to safe drinking water; demands support for the binding treaty being drafted at the United Nationsdeclarations, pacts and treaties at the United Nations that have included this right;
Amendment 204 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. DeploresHighlights the fact that, as several UN experts have stated, the commodification of water and speculation in futures markets is in breach of basic human rights poses a threat since it cand contributes to increasing environmental degradation and exacerbating the vulnerability of the poorest and most marginalised in society, flying in the face of the Sustainable Development Goals;
Amendment 208 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
Amendment 215 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Recalls that, as the EU Water Framework Directive recognises, water is not a commodity but a publica good that is vital to human life and dignity; calls on the Commission, given that these are services of general interest that fall, therefore, primarily in the public interest, to permanently exclude water and sanitation and wastewater treatment from the scope of any trade agreements and to check carefully that trade agreements and the activities of European companies do not undermine, whether by action or omission, the right to drinking water and sanitation;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Calls on states to adopt a policy implementing the human right to water and sanitation and promoting the provision of water and sanitation as essential public services for all;(Does not affect the English version.)
Amendment 226 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Stresses that public provision is the most appropriate model for the exercise of the human rights to water and sanitation; urges states in this regard to engage in a transparent and robust deprivatisation processadopt the model that is best suited to improveing the effective enjoyment of the human rights to water and sanitation in their societies; calls on governments to increase public investments in sustainable water-related infrastructure and to safeguard water as an essential public good;
Amendment 236 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Calls on the World Bank and the IMF to prohibitdisincentivise the imposition of conditions requiring governments to privatise water and sanitation services when providing grants, loans and technical assistance; stresses that the widespread privatisation of public goods in many societies is systematically dismantling human rights safeguards and further marginalising those living in the most abject poverty;
Amendment 252 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Stresses that inequalities in access to water and sanitation are often attributable to systemic inequalities or exclusion; calls on governments to guarantee the absence of discrimination in access to water and sanitation services, as a public good, ensuring the provision thereof for all, in particular by affording priority to access for marginalised groups with a view to remedying systemic discriminat(Does not affect the English version;.)