PURPOSE: to examine the follow-up on the European
Citizens' Initiative "Water and sanitation are a human right! Water
is a public good, not a commodity!"
BACKGROUND: "Right2Water" is the
first European Citizens' Initiative to have met the requirements
set out in the Regulation of the European Parliament and
Council on the Citizens' Initiative. It was officially
submitted to the Commission by its organisers on 20 December 2013,
after having received the support of more than 1.6 million
citizens.
The Right2Water initiative invites the Commission "to
propose legislation implementing the human right to water and
sanitation, as recognized by the United Nations, and promoting
the provision of water and sanitation as essential public services
for all". The initiative urges 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 be
excluded from liberalization;
·
The EU increases its efforts to achieve
universal access to water and sanitation.
In line with the provisions of the Regulation on the
Citizens' Initiative, the Commission has three months to present
its response to this initiative in a Communication setting out its
legal and political conclusions on the initiative.
CONTENT: the Communication first describes the work
done by the EU in the field of water and
sanitation.
The EU has also reaffirmed that "all States bear human
rights obligations regarding access to safe drinking water, which
must be available, physically accessible, affordable and
acceptable". The EU Water Framework
Directive recognises
that "water is not a commercial product like any other but,
rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as
such".
The EU has in particular:
·
established ambitious water quality
standards, guaranteeing a high level of protection for both
public health and the environment. The Water Framework Directive,
the Drinking Water Directive
and the Urban Wastewater Treatment
Directive are the key pieces
of EU law in this field;
·
provided financial support to expand and
improve water infrastructures in the
Member States. Over the past seven years (2007-2013), EU financial
support for investments in drinking water supply and
wastewater-related works and infrastructure reached almost EUR 22
billion;
·
based its policy on the principle that
affordability of water services is critical.
EU legislation has consistently acknowledged the
specificity of water and sanitation services and their
importance in satisfying the basic needs of the
population:
·
drinking water concessions, as well as certain concessions for waste water
treatment and disposal are therefore excluded from the scope of
the new EU rules on the award of concession contracts;
·
water distribution and supply and wastewater
services are expressly excluded from the application of the
cross-border freedom to provide services, as established in
the Services Directive.
At the global level, the EU
and its Member States currently provide close to 1.5 billion EUR
every year for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
programmes in developing countries, making the Union the largest
single donor in the water sector.
Measures to be undertaken: in response to the
citizens' call for action, the Commission is committed to take
concrete steps and work on a number of new actions in areas that
are of direct relevance to the initiative and its goals:
·
to reinforce implementation of its water
quality legislation, building on the commitments presented in
the 7th Environment Action Programme
(EAP) and the Water
Blueprint;
·
to launch an EU-wide public consultation
on the Drinking Water Directive, notably in view of improving
access to quality water in the EU;
·
to continue to ensure EU neutrality as
regards national, regional and local choices for the provision of
water services, while taking care that key Treaty principles such
as transparency and equal treatment are observed;
·
to develop new initiatives to improve
information to citizens so that the consumer enjoys greater
transparency in relation to the quality of drinking
water;
·
to explore the idea of comparative
evaluation of water quality;
·
to promote a more structured dialogue between
stakeholders - bringing together public and private service
operators - and to cooperate with existing initiatives - to provide
a wider set of indicators and benchmarks for water
services;
·
to stimulate innovative approaches for
development assistance (e.g. support to partnerships between
water operators and to public-public partnerships); promote sharing
of best practices between Member States (e.g. on solidarity
instruments) and identify new opportunities for
cooperation;
·
to advocate universal access to safe drinking
water and sanitation as a priority area in the post-2015
development framework.
The Commission invites the Member States, acting within their
competences, to take account of the concerns raised by citizens
through this initiative and encourages them to step up their own
efforts to guarantee the provision of safe, clean and affordable
drinking water and sanitation to all.