Water campaign backed by 1.5 million citizens
The campaign “Water is a human right!” launched last year by the European Federation of Public Service Unions and supported by Social Platform has collected over 1.5 million signatures across Europe, and continues counting. 8 countries have passed the minimum number of signatures required. These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Slovenia.
It is the first European Citizens’ Initiative to make it! In fact you need at least one million EU citizens’ signatures, coming from at least 7 out of the 27 member states. A minimum number of signatories is required in each of those 7 countries.
Access to clean drinking water is a universal right, especially for the poorest and most disadvantaged people. Water is a public service and a common good that can’t be left to the market. Liberalisation in the supply of water services will only increase the gap between rich and poor and exclude from access to water people that cannot pay for it. In Europe 1 million do not have access to water and 800.000 to sanitation.
This Citizens’ Initiative has the objective to ask the European Union to guarantee these human rights through the promotion of water supply and sanitation as essential public services for all.
Help us reach 2 million signatories by September by signing online or by downloading signature forms in your own language. There are several countries where only a few thousand signatures are needed to pass the threshold: Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands.
