The article that was added to the Constitution is the following:
Article 70a (Right to drinking water)
Everyone has the right to drinking water.
Water sources are public good managed by the state.
Water resources serve primarily as the sustainable supply of drinking water and water for households and in this part are not treated as a commodity that can be traded with.
Drinking water supplied to the public and to households is provided by the state through local communities direct and non-profit.
“From the 30th January 2016 to 11th March, we have collected a list of more than 51,000 signatures in support of having the inalienable right to water written into the Constitution. We handed this list to the National Assembly on 11th March. Our Citizens initiative therefore has to this date the backing of almost 3 percent of the voting population. Even after handing in the petition signatures, we have continued our efforts by working on a positive pressure and discussing the matter with water and legal professionals. We have also engaged public authorities covering the area of water, political parties and representatives of citizen initiatives in an open discussion. The objective of our actions was to be clearly written into the Constitution that water and water land is a natural public good, over which no-one can acquire ownership rights; that everyone has the right to drinking water; that the water supply of the population cannot be owned by private companies in any legal-formal way, and that the provision of the water supply to the public is a service which should not generate profit and that the water supply of the population has the absolute precedence over economic exploitation in the case of the water crisis or drought or other crises, and that the water resources be managed sustainably, with thoughts on our posterity.By written down unalienable right to drinking water into the Constitution we are thinking about the future in the present, we will show Europe and the world that Slovenian drinking water is a public good that cannot and will not be privatized and should permanently and primarily be used to supply the population (and animals) and only after that for economic purposes in Slovenia and export purposes, provided the water supply allows for it” writes the announcement by the activists of “Civil initiative For Slovenia and freedom, Water into the Constitution, water into the conscience”
Last night the Parliament held the voting. With 64 votes in favour and none against, the 90-seat parliament added an article to the EU country’s constitution saying “everyone has the right to drinkable water”. The centre-right opposition Slovenian Democratic party (SDS) abstained from the vote saying the amendment was not necessary and only aimed at increasing public support. Slovenia is a mountainous, water-rich country with more than half its territory covered by forest. “Water resources represent a public good that is managed by the state. Water resources are primary and durably used to supply citizens with potable water and households with water and, in this sense, are not a market commodity,” the article reads.
The centre-left prime minister, Miro Cerar, had urged lawmakers to pass the bill saying the country of two million people should “protect water – the 21st century’s liquid gold – at the highest legal level”. “Slovenian water has very good quality and, because of its value, in the future it will certainly be the target of foreign countries and international corporations’ appetites.“As it will gradually become a more valuable commodity in the future, pressure over it will increase and we must not give in,” Cerar said.
Slovenia is the first European Union country to include the right to water in its constitution, although according to Rampedre (the online Permanent World Report on the Right to Water) 15 other countries across the world had already done so.
Last night the National Assembly of Slovenia passed an amendment to its Constitution to include a new article that recognizes the Human Right to Water. The amendment affirms water should be treated as a public good managed by the state, not as a commodity, and that drinking water must be supplied by the public sector in a non-for-profit basis. It is a great success for Slovenian activists and people.
“Citizens from across the EU and Europe have successfully mobilized to have the right to water and sanitation recognized as a human right – as decided by the United Nations – and have this put into EU law. The European Commission continues to ignore nearly two million voices of the first ever successful European Citizens Initiative. Commissioner Vella should listen to citizens and follow the Slovenian example as soon as possible,” said Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU General Secretary.
Water is a controversial topic in Slovenia, as foreign companies from the food and beverage industry are buying rights to a large amount of local water resources. The Slovenian government has raised concerns about the impacts of free trade agreements like CETA in its capacity to control and regulate these resources [1].
“Trade agreements and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms can limit the ability of states to take back public control over water resources when foreign investors are involved, as it is the case in Slovenia. To guarantee the right to water and the control over this key resource, the European and the Slovenian Parliaments should reject CETA when it comes to a vote in the coming months,” said David Sánchez, Director of Food & Water Europe.
The amendment is the result of a citizens’ initiative that collected 51.000 signatures to propose a constitutional amendment [2].
“We welcome the introduction of the human right to water in the Slovenian constitution, as the great result of a citizens’ initiative. Now civil society should be vigilant to guarantee a democratic and transparent management of the integrated water cycle founded in the participation of citizens and workers,” said Jutta Schütz, speakperson at the European Water Movement.
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Notes
[1] The Slovenian government raised concerns about the ambiguity of terms like “commercial use of a water source” in CETA, how the agreement applies to existing water rights and the future ability of national governments to put limits on concessions already granted without being subject to claim under ICS, among others. The document can be found here
https://europeanwater.org/images/pdf/Slovenia-questions-on-Water_14-9-2016.pdf
[2] More information about this citizen’s initiative can be found at their website
https://voda.svoboda.si/
Contact:
Jutta Schütz, Speakperson, European Water Movement, +49 (0) 157 390 808 39 (mobile), juttaschuetz(at)gmx.de
David Sánchez, Director, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045 (land), +32 (0) 485 842 604 (mobile), dsanchez(at)fweurope.org
Guillaume Durivaux, Policy officer, EPSU, +32 (0) 22501041, gdurivaux(at)epsu.org
PDF file of this press release
European Public Service Union – Food & Water Europe – European Water Movement
The recommendations of a commission set up to draft the constitutional amendment were approved by 65 votes, with the remaining 25 members either abstaining or not being present. The proposal thus reached the two-thirds necessary to kick of the process of including the right to water in the Constitution.
The text proposed by the Commission, and approved on Tuesday 12 July, states that drinking water ‘should not be treated as a commodity’ and defines drinking water provision as a ‘non-profit public service’.
The wording should protect water services for citizens from any future liberalisation initiated by the European Commission. It marks a big success for the trade unions and NGOs which have campaigned, both in Slovenian and across Europe, for the recognition of water as a human right that must be protected from privatisation.
The Right2Water campaign, initiated by EPSU, became the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative in 2013 when it submitted 1.9 million signatures in favour of guaranteed water and sanitation across Europe and against the liberalisation of water services. Slovenian surpassed the national threshold for signatures several times over. This widespread support for the right to water in Slovenia has now borne fruit with water rights set to be enshrined in the national constitution.
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UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 (IPS) – Amidst growing new threats of potential conflicts over fast-dwindling water resources in the world’s arid regions, the United Nations will commemorate 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC).
But Maude Barlow, chairperson, Council of Canadians and a former senior advisor on water to the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2008-2009, warns the U.N.’s water agenda is in danger of being hijacked by big business and water conglomerates.
“We don’t need the United Nations to promote private sector participation under the guise of greater ‘cooperation’ when these same companies force their way into communities and make huge profits from the basic right to water and sanitation,” Barlow told IPS.
At this time of scarcity and financial crisis, she said, “We need the United Nations to ensure that governments are fulfilling their obligations to provide basic services rather than relinquishing to transnational corporations.”
The Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which has been designated the lead U.N. agency, formally launched IYWC at a ceremony in the French capital Monday.
In New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned of the new pressures on water, including growing populations and climate change. One-third of the world’s 7.1 billion people already live in countries with moderate to high water stress, he said.
“Competition is growing between farmers and herders; industry and agriculture; town and country,” Ban said. Upstream and downstream, and across borders, “We need to cooperate for the benefit of all now and in the future… Let us harness the best technologies and share the best practices to get more crop per drop.”
Back in December 2010, the 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2013 as the IYWC, following a proposal by Tajikistan.
The 2013 World Water Day, which will take place on Mar. 22, will be dedicated to water cooperation.
Barlow told IPS big water corporations have gained influence in almost every agency working at the United Nations.
The CEO Water Mandate, a public-private sector initiative launched by the United Nations in July 2007 and designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices, puts corporations such as Nestle, Coca Cola, Suez and Veolia directly into a position of influence over global water policy and presents a clear conflict of interest, she said.
“For-profit private companies cannot uphold the public interest if it conflicts with their bottom line,” said Barlow, who is also founder of the Blue Planet Project.
Even the World Water Development Report is now advised by an industry group on “business, trade, finance and involvement of the private sector,” she added.
Tom Slaymaker, senior policy analyst on governance at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS the United Nations recognised the “human right to water and sanitation” back in 2010. “But today over 780 million lack improved water supplies and 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation facilities,” he added.
The 2013 International Year of Water Cooperation will be a critical year for the United Nations to reflect on why universal access has not yet been achieved, he said.
Slaymaker said it’s also time to reflect on the kind of political leadership and new forms of partnership that are required to accelerate progress towards universal access as part of the emerging post-2015 development framework of the United Nations.
According to the United Nations, the primary objective of IYWC is to raise awareness, both on the potential for increased cooperation, and on the challenges facing water management in light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services.
Since the General Assembly recognised the human right to water and sanitation, a number of countries, including Mexico, Kenya, Bolivia, The Dominican Republic, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ecuador, El Salvador, The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and France, have either adopted laws recognising the right to water or amended their constitutions to do so. The Vatican recently recognised the human right to water and added that “water is not a commercial product but rather a common good that belongs to everyone.”And last June, all 193 member states signed the Rio+20 Declaration which includes the recognition of the human right to water and sanitation as a universal right.
Specifically zeroing on the role of the private sector, Barlow told IPS that corporations are among those pledging their support for IYWC.
Aguas de Barcelona, the water company at the heart of a fierce debate in Spain over control of drinking water, is participating, she pointed out. So are “corporations who fought us on the right to water are now scrambling to claim it in their own image”.
She quoted Nestle as saying that 1.5 percent of the world’s water should be put aside for the poor and rest should be put on the open market. If Nestle gets its way, she argued, there will one day be a water cartel similar to big oil, making life and death decisions about who gets water and under what circumstances every day. “But at least we have this recognized and acknowledged right that no one should be allowed to appropriate water for personal gain while others die from an inability to pay for water,” she said. With time, “we will build consensus around the right to water and the understanding that water is a common heritage and a public trust.”
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[box] Success for the ECI (European Citizens Initiative) on affordable and non-privatized access to clean water. This legislative initiative, an institution which was adopted at the Treaty of Lisbon, is the first successful attempt to collect among the European citizens 1,000,000 official signatures, (with passport number or ID), so as to call on the European Commission to initiate a legislative process. (Before of the implementation of ECI, only the commission had the right to initiate legislation at the European Parliament.) [/box]
[box]Perhaps now, that the Europeans have spoken up and declared, despite the technical and legal setbacks, that they do not want the water market creation and commercialization of their precious resource, the unelected Commissioners Barnier and Oli Rehn will begin to listen also to civil society apart from their friends of the Steering Group, consisting of executives of water corporations. Unless they regard themselves, emperors.[/box]
[box type=”warning”] Although the 1,000,000 signatures were collected, apparently they are supposed to consist of a minimum of signatures from 7 different countries… Greece has yet to catch this minimum which in our case is 16,500. Many have contacted us because they were not able to sign electronically. We alerted the organizers of the European Citizens Initiative about this so as to urge the EU In order to solve the technical problems since the software used for the process is theirs… As if it were not enough that civil society is required to run such an expensive and intricate in legal proceedings, procedure, they make whatever humanly possible to complicate it further.. Another reason for us to skyrocket signatures from Greece.[/box]
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EPSU Press communication
11 February 2013
“One million signatures for Water as a Human Right !”
(Brussels, 11 February)
Yesterday, the first up and running European Citizens Initiative (ECI) ‘Water is a Human Right’ made history as also being the first ECI in the history of the European Union to have collected over 1 million signatures.
Anne-Marie Perret, President of the Citizens Committee says “Reaching this important milestone, with one Million EU citizens agreeing that water and sanitation are human rights, is a great success. We appreciate the support of so many and will continue campaigning to pass a strong message to the European Commission. We have also managed to overcome the start up problems, as well as the legal and technical barriers forced upon us by the European Commission and Member States.”
The ECI “Water is a Human Right” has been a success not just because more than 1 million people have signed but in terms of creating a real European debate. 2013 is the European Year of citizenship and we have manage to get more than 1.5 million visits to our website the month of January only. It has contributed to creating a space for a European debate in which many citizens are engaging.
The ECI will continue to collect signatures to ensure that the voices of as many people in as many different countries as possible are heard. On March 22rd we will celebrate World Water Day with well over a million voices against liberalization of water, and for the implementation of the human right to water and sanitation in the EU.
For more information: Pablo Sanchez, [email protected] 0032 (0) 474 62 66 33
EPSU is the European Federation of Public Service Unions. It is the largest federation of the ETUC and comprises 8 million public service workers from over 275 trade unions; EPSU organizes workers in the energy, water and waste sectors, health and social services and local and national administration, in all European countries including in the EU’s Eastern Neighborhood. EPSU is the recognized regional organization of Public Services International (PSI).
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[box type=”info”] The legal basis of the citizens’ initiative is set out in Article 11, Paragraph 4 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Article 24, paragraph 1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Both articles were newly introduced with the Treaty of Lisbon.[/box]
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