Brussels, 20/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EUROLAT) closed its work on Thursday 20 December with the adoption of three reports on: - relations between the EU and Latin America in the run-up to its 5th summit in Lima; the challenges and opportunities provided by globalisation for economic and trade relations between the two regions; and environmental balance in the context of global warming. MEPs held a particularly lively exchange on the theme of access to water, a subject that they will go into in greater depth during the next plenary session of EUROLAT, in May 2008, in Lima.
Mexican Senator José Guadarrama said that water management is “fundamental for Latin America”, which owns “20% of the world's reserve of fresh water” although its “population only has access to 1%”. In his view, it would indeed be serious if the EUROLAT Assembly did not tackle such a serious problem which is in itself a “source of potential conflict”. Jorge Pizarro Soto, who is co-president of the parliamentary assembly, highlighted the resolve shown by Latin American deputies to “ensure universal access to water”. This task, he said, should be in the state's hands, but this does not necessarily prevent “private management” of this natural resource. A representative of the Latin American Parliament said that people “need water and need universal access to it”. Several Latin American deputies expressed the wish for this subject to be set to one side until it is taken up again in Lima. The idea of a country by country study was launched.
French Green member Alain Lipietz recalled that the EU is taking part in “negotiations with Mercosur, the Andean Community and Central America”. “This is the first time that EUROLAT can give negotiators a political stance” on the question of water, which is “one of the major points under negotiation”, he said. Saying that some at the European Commission would look favourably upon complete privatisation of water, he nonetheless stressed that “water cannot be privatised, but its management can be entrusted to private operators”. He went on to cite the example of the French company, Suez, which manages water in La Havana, Cuba. Christa Klass (EPP-ED, Germany) was opposed to anything meaning “if its private, it's necessarily bad”. “In our view, the amendment poses the question of water as a public service” and of its management “the arrangements for which have still to be determined”, said Véronique De Keyser (PES, Belgium). Her French counterpart, Bernadette Vergnaud, warned against the “very bad political sign” that EUROLAT would give if it did not take a stance on a “subject that is so important for the planet”.
Ultimately, MEPs voted for the proposed amendment as it stood. This considered the private management of water resources to be detrimental, by making it more difficult for populations to access this vital resource, and committed the EU and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to ensure universal access to water and to consider the supply of water as an essential public service, without ruling out the possibility of its being managed by a private company.
In its report on EU-Latin America relations ahead of the Lima summit, the EUROLAT Parliamentary Assembly recommended the setting up of: - a Euro-Latin American secretariat, made up of representatives of the European institutions, the Ibero American secretariat and EUROLAT; - a bi-regional violent conflict prevention centre, to give warning of and prevent possible escalation; - a bi-regional disaster warning centre to prepare strategies to deal with disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding; - a Euro-Latin American public-private foundation to promote dialogue between partners, with the Commission having been asked to draw up a specific proposal. The parliamentary assembly wants to “institutionalise” entrepreneurial and trade union dialogue, and dialogue between local authorities on either side of the Atlantic.
On an organisational level, the EUROLAT co-presidents want to settle the issue of bringing members of the Mercosur parliament, which is currently being set up, into EUROLAT within the next three months or, at least, before the Lima summit. When asked by EUROPE, Pizarro Soto confirmed the Latin American request for 13 additional seats to allow this to take place, and to this would be added a Mexican and a Chilean MP, whose countries have signed direct association agreements with the EU. These MPs should be full EUROLAT members, said José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (EPP-ED, Spain), and he said he would give the request his full consideration. This request would mean that there would have to be 15 further European MPs added since the EUROLAT Parliamentary Assembly has equal numbers from each side. It will be up to the Conference of the European Parliament Presidents to make a decision on this. Bringing the discussions to an end, Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra welcomed the level of participation over the three days. Never before had it been seen in Brussels on 20 December, he joked. Certain that development without integration is virtually impossible, he advocated integration as a common desire rather than through force, and invited everyone to Lima in May 2008. (M.B.)