European Parliament to vote on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
The European Parliament will vote next week, June 25th, on a report about the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. This is a result of the huge campaign to collect signatures under the European Citizens Initiative tool, that succeeded to gather support from nearly 2 million citizens (more background info below).
This is a non-binding report, but it can be a really strong political signal to force the European Commission to act. The vote will happen in the Environment Committee. In September it will be voted in Plenary.
The draft report is quite good. It can be found, in many languages, here.
During the negotiations and debate in the Parliament, the key controversial points of the report are the exclusion of water from trade agreements, the promotion of Pub-Pub Partnerships vs PPP and the inclusion of the right to water in EU legislation.
Food & Water Europe, together with the European Water Movement, launched an online action today - june 19th, 2015 - to contact the Members of European Parliament. Please distribute and, if you live in Europe, please take action.
http://fweuro.pe/SupportWaterAsAHumanRightToday
The European Water Movement organized several protests and actions last World Water Day in Brussels to put pressure on the European Parliament and the European Commission (see some pictures here). This vote is a key moment in the really long campaign to implement the human right to water in EU legislation.
More updates after the vote. In the meanwhile, we will be tweeting from the following accounts
@euwm<https://twitter.com/euwm>
@FoodWaterEurope<https://twitter.com/FoodWaterEurope>
@right2water<https://twitter.com/right2water>
@EPSUnions<https://twitter.com/EPSUnions>