Letter to the MEPs on the MEP Water Group

In mid November a group of MEPs tried to relaunch a lobby group inside the European Parliament that pretends to be water related. However, the stated aim of this group of MEPs does not consider the effort of European civil society for the past decade to achieve the human right to water at the European level.

The MEP Water Group is composed by some MEPs that have a terrible track record on the promotion of a human right based approach for water and they seemed to be more concerned about the interests of lobby groups and industry.

The European water movement has sent a letter to the members of the European Parliament clarifying the issue and demanding that the EU recognises water as a human right, like almost two million citizens demanded ten years ago during the first ever ECI. We have also demanded for a clear position against the quotation of water in the stock market as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to water and sanitation concerned.

We will continue to demand, as our Naples chart states, the recognition and implementation of the human right to drinking water and sanitation as necessary for life. Access to water as a universal human right should be included in all constitutions of member states, and in the basic principles and acts of the European Union and that Water is to be excluded from all international trade agreements, including the treaties of the World Trade Organisation and to be excluded from the internal market rules of the European Union. The MEP Water Group does not neither of them. 

See the letter here :

Dear MEPs,

In the name of the European Water Movement we would like to inform you that the initiative of the MEP Water Group does not recognize as a priority that water is a human right, as recognized by the UN, through the Resolution 64/292 adopted in 2010.

We call the members of the MEP Water Group and the members of the European Parliament as a whole to consider, recognize and implement the right to water, as requested by nearly two million people in 2013 through the European Citizens Initiative. We remind you of the three pillars of the ECI, which have still not been implemented in EU law:

• Guaranteed water and sanitation for all in Europe as a Human Right and common good.
• No liberalisation of water services. It also means the exclusion of water from trade and investment agreements.
• Universal (Global) access to water and sanitation.

We would also like to draw to your attention the need to consider water as a public good, a human right and a common good that you fail to address in the MEP Water Group mission statement. We believe it would be more appropriate to work for a statement against quotation of water in the stock market. To this regard, we remind you of the grave concern expressed by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Right to Water and Sanitation and the European civil society that contrasts with the unacceptable silence of EU institutions.

We would be happy to exchange on this issue,

Yours