Case: Policy coherence in general

28-11-2011 Privatisation of water resources incoherent with MDGs according to MEP Mélenchon

Under the pressure of the World Bank, the IMF and the European Commission, there has been a world wide increase of privatising water recourses. The aim was to encourage sustainable development, mainly in developing countries, and to have the costs increasingly covered. However, as a consequence the prices of safe water access have risen, since water has been turned from a public good into a commodity in countries where water resources have been privatized. Due to this, many people in developing countries have decreased or no access to safe drinking water.

MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon (GUE/NGL) points out that the Commission reaffirmed its commitment to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable water access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. According to Mélenchon this can not only be attained by planting trees and changing farming patterns. Also water resources have to be managed and distributed in line with the general interest, which can only be guaranteed by public services. Privatisation of water resources therefore is incoherent with the EU development objectives and the MDGs to which the EU committed itself. MEP Mélenchon therefore asks the Commission what commitments it will make to actually attain this MDG.

Fair Politics welcomes this written question by MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon. For his effort to promote Policy Coherence for Development, Fair Politics will grant MEP Mélenchon one point in the race towards the Fair Politician of the Year Award.

Monitor fair: GUE/NGL


Parliamentary questions
12 September 2011 E-008030/2011

Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (GUE/NGL)

Subject: Decommodifying water to ensure access for all

World Water Week ended on Monday. The Commission merely reaffirmed its minimalist commitment to the Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. However, nearly 1.6 billion of the planets 7 billion inhabitants are currently deprived of effective access to drinking water, resulting in the death of approximately 34 000 people a day; that is one person every 20 seconds. Now is not, therefore, the time for congratulations. Contrary to what the Commission would have us believe, the solution does not lie solely in planting trees and changing farming patterns. It lies, above all, in ensuring that water resources are managed and distributed in line with the general interest. And only public services can provide such a guarantee. The privatisations of recent years, in Europe and elsewhere in the world, carried out under pressure from the World Bank, the IMF and the European Commission, need to be reconsidered.
What specific, quantified commitments will the Commission give for attaining this MDG? Does it consider the goal to be satisfactory, or is it considering making more ambitious commitments?
Will the Commission at least make European multinationals which make a profit from water Suez, Vivendi, Veolia and others contribute to tackling the lack of access to drinking water?
Will the Commission ban clauses in the international treaties which it negotiates that allow the management and distribution of water to be privatised?
When might the Commission finally advocate that the first cubic metres of water essential to life should be free, thereby ending the inequality of access to water, a shared resource of mankind?
When will the Commission stop treating water as a commodity?