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Utorak, 23. listopada 2018. - Strasbourg

8.1. Kvaliteta vode namijenjene za ljudsku potrošnju (A8-0288/2018 - Michel Dantin)

Oral explanations of vote

  Rory Palmer, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, I think when many of us turn on the taps in our homes or our workplaces we will take it for granted that the water in our glass will be clean, safe and of sufficient quality to drink, and Parliament has today gone some way to ensuring that remains the case. We’ve taken important steps on endocrine disruptors, on Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and on microplastics in our water. We are responding to the concerns of citizens on the safety and quality of our drinking water.

I want to turn though to those people who do not have a tap to turn on, those who are homeless, who live in the makeshift refugee camps we see in European cities. Parliament today could and should have gone much further on the right to water. We have missed an opportunity today to respond in full to those 1.8 million EU citizens who signed the European Citizens’ Initiative on the right to water. Those in this House, who chose not to respond positively to that call from our citizens will have to answer to them next year in the elections.

Finally, I want to turn to the issue of water leakage. Leaking water from our pipes, from our networks is not just bad for the environment, it isn’t just wasteful, it means water bills are higher for customers. I particularly want to mention the campaign by the GMB trade union in the UK, the Take Back the Tap campaign, which is seeking to get water back in public hands, and properly accountable to the public. 2.4 billion litres of water wasted every single day in the UK by the privatised water companies, 432 million litres a day leaking from the Severn Trent network in my region and at the same time, those companies in the last five years have paid out GBP 6.5 billion in shareholder dividends.

We all have a right to clean, safe drinking water and those water suppliers should be acting in the public interest, not in the interests of bonanza shareholder dividends.

  José Inácio Faria (PPE). –Senhora Presidente, votei a favor desta resolução pela urgência na definição de parâmetros mínimos da qualidade da água na União e pela garantia de que todos os cidadãos do território europeu tenham acesso a este bem fundamental.

O acesso à água potável tem de ser considerado um direito humano fundamental.

Exatamente por ser essencial para a saúde humana, a água não pode ser escrava do negócio de distribuição. Enquanto bem público, defendo padrões de qualidade e prevenção de desperdício que só são alcançáveis através da exploração ética da água. São estes valores que devem ser promovidos quando falamos da eficiência dos sistemas de distribuição.

Reforço ainda que, em 2010, as Nações Unidas consagraram a água como um direito humano, a par do saneamento, e que, por isso, o acesso à água potável não deve estar condicionado pela falta de recursos económicos do utilizador final.

Foi por este motivo que votei a favor da disponibilização de pontos de água potável em locais públicos, de qualidade controlada, como já existem em muitos Estados-Membros de forma voluntária, no desejo de que se torne também regra para toda a União Europeia.

  Alex Mayer (S&D). – Madam President, 1.2 million bathtubs’ worth. That’s how much water Anglian Water wastes every single day through leaks. Yet the privatised water company showered their shareholders with a total of GBP 320 million last year. It’s another 1.2 million bathtubs’ worth for Affinity Water, 453 000 for Essex and Suffolk Water and 93 000 for Cambridge Water. All wasted.

It’s time for change. We need a water industry that works for everyone and England’s water needs to be in the hands of the public. After all, water is vital for life and about as natural a monopoly as you can find. Where’s the need for a market? When you run the bath, the choice is hot or cold, not Anglia Water or Thames Water. As this report rightly says, leakage rates need to fall, and that is why I am proud to back the GMB’s campaign. It’s time to take back the tap.

  Petras Auštrevičius (ALDE). – Madam President, it is indeed remarkable how many EU citizens participated in the Right2Water initiative which gave birth to this European Parliament resolution. Therefore, I have strongly supported this proposal to revise the EU’s Drinking Water Directive. Having access to high quality drinkable water is essential for people’s health and the quality of their daily life. The proposal aims to adjust the Directive so we can better address new challenges such as climate change and adapt the rules to the new scientific environment and circular economy. In addition, with this proposal we aim at more ambitious water quality standards for human consumption.

I hope that as soon as such standards are set in place the Member States, including mine, Lithuania, will do their best to achieve them; for example, by providing more public drinking-water fountains and improving water infrastructure. We have to ensure safe, affordable and high quality water for our citizens.

  Νότης Μαριάς (ECR). – Κύριε Πρόεδρε, το νερό είναι κοινωνικό αγαθό, είναι απαραίτητο για τη ζωή και την υγεία. Γι’ αυτό και η πρωτοβουλία των πολιτών για το νερό συγκέντρωσε πάνω από 2 εκατομμύρια υπογραφές. Όλοι απαιτούν ποιοτικό νερό, καθαρό νερό, νερό προσιτό σε όλους, καθολική πρόσβαση στο νερό. Αυτό σημαίνει, βεβαίως, ότι η τιμή του νερού πρέπει να είναι προσιτή σε όλους και να υπάρχουν ειδικά τιμολόγια για ευάλωτες κοινωνικές ομάδες, όπως είναι οι άνεργοι, να έχουμε μηδενικό φόρο προστιθέμενης αξίας στις υπηρεσίες παροχής κοινωνικής ωφέλειας για την ύδρευση, να απαγορεύεται η διακοπή της υδροδότησης σε περίπτωση οφειλών από ευαίσθητες κοινωνικές ομάδες, όπως είναι οι συνταξιούχοι, να έχουμε διαγραφή των ληξιπρόθεσμων χρεών των ανέργων. Παροχή, βεβαίως, του νερού να γίνεται από το Δημόσιο και όχι από ιδιωτικές δομές. Ταυτόχρονα, να μη γίνει ξεπούλημα της ΕΥΔΑΠ και της ΕΥΑΘ στην Ελλάδα, μια και έχουν ενταχθεί στο υπερταμείο.

  Eleonora Forenza (GUE/NGL). – Signora Presidente, onorevoli colleghi, ci saremmo aspettati un testo più coraggioso da quest'Aula e questo è il motivo della mia astensione su questo voto.

Ci saremmo aspettati più coraggio nel dare seguito all'iniziativa Right2Water e, in particolare, più coraggio nell'esprimere tolleranza zero verso le sostanze PFAS che avvelenano il sangue e la vita di migliaia di persone nella regione del Veneto.

Abbiamo ascoltato in questi giorni le mamme "NO PFAS" e le loro preoccupazioni, ma abbiamo ascoltato anche chi ci ha portato studi medici che testimoniano quanto queste sostanze bioaccumulabili, sia a catena corta che a catena lunga, abbiano il potere di avvelenare la salute delle persone.

In un'Unione europea in cui vige il principio di precauzione, ci saremmo aspettati coerentemente il divieto totale e la tolleranza zero verso le sostanze PFAS.

  Stanislav Polčák (PPE). – Paní předsedající, já jsem hlasoval pro tento návrh zprávy a chtěl bych se vyjádřit k tomuto tématu. Myslím, že si všichni uvědomujeme, jak je tato oblast zásadní pro budoucí vývoj evropského společenství. Jedná se skutečně o primární zdroj, voda je primární zdroj pro náš život, který je také důležitou součástí každodenního života každého z Evropanů. Obyvatelé Evropy zatím nepociťují, že by se jich osobně týkaly problémy s dostupností nebo kvalitou pitné vody. Dostupností myslím jak fyzickou dostupnost této komodity, tak samozřejmě i cenovou dostupnost. To ovšem neznamená, že bychom v této oblasti neměli podnikat nové kroky ke zlepšení současné situace. Přístup k pitné vodě a její kvalita jsou primárními zájmy EU, přesto si myslím, že bychom měli být velice opatrní při tvoření nových legislativních opatření. V této oblasti nesmíme zapomínat respektovat princip subsidiarity. Vodní zdroje by měly být primárně spravovány a ošetřovány jednotlivými členskými státy. Já jsem tuto zprávu podpořil, podpořil jsem také určitá opatření, která zvýrazňovala roli obcí a měst.

  Luke Ming Flanagan (GUE/NGL). – Madam President, we need to be ambitious when it comes to our water quality and water supply. That’s why I abstained on this because this report, this was not ambitious enough. The reason why I say it wasn’t ambitious enough is because it went below the minimum standard.

The idea that it would be acceptable to people in here that you can go in and cut off the water supply to a house with children in it, if that’s a minimum for you well I can’t go along with that. But then again it can’t be a surprise, because we have a Commissioner for Agriculture who is actually here because of what he said on this issue in Ireland. He said that if people didn’t pay their water bills, no matter how much they needed it, their water would be cut down to a trickle.

His punishment was to be thrown out of Irish politics, but in the bizarre world of European politics his reward was to get that job here. But let there be a warning to people here: you need to be more ambitious than you were today. The idea that you can cut off someone’s water supply when they need it for their bottle to feed them and to quench their thirst … you cause major problems for them, and this is what you will do by voting for what you did today. That’s not ambitious enough for me. Is it too much to ask?

  Daniel Hannan (ECR). – Madam President, yet again I find myself asking, to what problem is this legislative proposal the solution? Clean water and its spread has been one of the miracles of our lifetime, not only in Europe but world-wide. One of the extraordinary and unreported wonders is the number of people who are no longer subject to water-borne diseases.

But it is not a problem in the European Union and if it were, there are ample national regulations and laws and legal remedies open for an individual who has been injured without needing additional regulation. Smuggled into this report is something quite different as well. The proposal that restaurants should all have to supply free water on demand.

Now again, I think this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the private sector operates and what free contract is. Nobody has to eat in a restaurant, and if they choose to it’s surely up to the restaurateur to offer whatever terms he wanted. You’ve got to ask, is there any crevice, is there any nook or cranny of national life so small that Brussels doesn’t seek to thrust its stubby fingers into it?

  Dubravka Šuica (PPE). – Gospođo predsjedavajuća, ovo je prva građanska inicijativa nakon Lisabonskog sporazuma koja je zaista uspjela, koja je prikupila više od 1 800 000 potpisa i koju smo kao Parlament ozbiljno uzeli u razmatranje.

Drago mi je da je danas Parlament velikom većinom glasao za pravo na vodu. Uvjerena sam da svaki građanin treba imati pravo na kvalitetnu vodu i ja vjerujem da će ovi pregovori završiti čim prije, da će se države članice usuglasiti i da će svaki građanin dobiti pravo na čistu, pitku i kvalitetnu vodu. Smatram da je to najmanji standard koji možemo našim građanima Europske unije priuštiti.

Kad je Hrvatska u pitanju, mi smo treća zemlja po bogatstvu voda u Europskoj uniji i sigurna sam da će moja država Hrvatska i njezine vlasti omogućiti našim građanima da imaju pristup na vodu, jer smatram da je to prije svega građansko pravo i slažem se s time što su Ujedinjeni narodi proglasili pravo na vodu građanskim, odnosno ljudskim pravom.