Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-458"
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"en.20090311.40.3-458"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, two years ago, we held a debate in this House and adopted an exacting resolution on the subject of water on the occasion of the Fourth World Forum held in Mexico City. We wrote then that water must be considered a human right and that active policies must be developed to realise this right through forms of public-private cooperation, focusing, in particular, on local communities.
Unfortunately, that resolution was not supported by the European Commission, which was present in Mexico City – I would remind the Commissioner of this today – despite the fact that it was widely praised by many countries, especially in Latin America. The very nature of this kind of forum, a private structure, unfortunately prevailed. We now have the opportunity to send a parliamentary delegation to Istanbul, and it would be advantageous if our presence there were supported by an equally strong resolution as that of 2006: we are not quite there yet, which is why I am tabling these amendments.
We need to reach a real turning point on the water issue. The terrible statistics on water shortages are well known, and they are destined to get worse as a result of climate change. Indeed, it is in the area of climate change that new action is needed. Climate change is making access to water more difficult, and poor water access in turn aggravates climate change. So, as well as the rights issue, and that of public-private collaboration, we also have to look at building a strong relationship with the Kyoto Protocol. It is the UN that must be involved at the heart of matters concerning water. A dedicated UN body could be entrusted with global water governance, removing it from the private philosophy still present in the current forum. This would encourage connection with the important conventions on climate change and desertification that form part of the UN framework.
Appropriate finances will then, of course, be required. These could come from general taxes and charges, for example, on mineral water which – I would like to point out to my fellow Members – we use to excess even in this Parliament. The privatisation of water must be opposed: it would make access to a vital resource no longer a right but a market. I believe that the whole history of Europe teaches us that it is the public that has guaranteed the right to water in our homes, which does not happen on other continents increasingly prone to infiltration by the private sector.
These are practical matters, but they also have enormous moral importance. It is not by chance that the right to water is championed by large secular but also religious movements and celebrities. Recently, and many times over the last few years, the European Parliament Chamber has been made available – rightly, and I thank the presidents for this – for important meetings of global activist organisations. At the latest of these, the idea was put forward of a true protocol on the right to water, which I am convinced we should all support."@en1
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