It was meant to be a showcase of European Union democracy. Instead, say its critics, it’s turning into another example of Brussels bureaucratic overreach.

An effort to ensure that all EU inhabitants enjoy access to clean water seemed on track to becoming the first successful European citizens’ initiative, a process allowing ordinary people to set the bloc’s agenda by gathering at least 1 million signatures.

But what was regarded as a legislative no-brainer has run into unexpected opposition after the European Commission introduced language specifying that the right to water be extended to apply to marginalized groups, including “refugees, nomadic communities, homeless people and minority cultures such as Roma.”

“This was supposed to be a slam dunk file but now every EU country has an issue with this proposal,” said an EU environment official familiar with the issue. “The problem isn’t access to water — it’s defining vulnerable groups and overstepping into member state competences.”

The same official said that the Council’s lawyers are concerned about the legality of the measure, which will likely further bog down the legislative process.

Germans were particularly vocal in their support for the citizens’ initiative, in which a coalition of NGOs called Right2Water gathered more than 1.8 million signatures in 2013 (some 1.2 million of them in Germany).

Despite the petition’s popularity, Berlin is outspoken in its opposition to the Commission inserting the vulnerable people clause into a bill on water quality.

“We think that this legislation should concentrate on water quality,” said Alexander Plappert, a spokesperson for the German Permanent Representation to the EU. “There is no need to introduce a definition for vulnerable people because this is a different subject. We think it belongs in social security legislation.”

Water scarcity

An EU environment official from a newer member of the bloc said certain countries had cultural concerns about the measure, stressing that it would be hard to have a single definition for all 28 members.

“This is a social and cultural question,” said the diplomat. “Not all the countries have the same groups, and some are touched more by certain groups. These issues need to be dealt with so there needs to be a flexible definition.”

In 2017, the European Roma Rights Centre compiled a study on water access for Roma communities across Europe. Two-thirds of the Roma settlements studied had less access to clean drinking water than their non-Roma neighbors. Asylum seekers also often struggle to secure access to clean drinking water in encampments.

According to the World Bank, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have the highest populations of Roma in the EU. According to Eurostat, Germany, France and Italy were the leading destinations for asylum seekers in Europe in 2017, mostly coming from the Middle East and Africa.

Another EU environment official said it would be hard for EU countries to comply with the legislation because of how many people could qualify as vulnerable.

“Is someone who has chosen to live off the grid going to count as vulnerable?” asked the legislator.

The petition marked the first time the European Commission has drafted a legislative proposal based on a European Citizens’ Initiative, a mechanism that obliges the institution to respond on an issue supported by at least 1 million Europeans.

Since the water initiative, the Commission has responded to other citizens’ initiatives, including a petition to ban glyphosate, a herbicide used in agriculture, but none has been turned into legislation. According to the Commission, there are five other open petitions, including on stopping extremism and reducing the economic gap between rich and poor in Europe.

Click Here: Cardiff Blues Store

‘Frankenstein’s monster’

In a debate in the European Parliament’s environment committee, some MEPs supported the controversial measure. Others stressed that it is up to EU countries to regulate access to water and affordability.

“This is environmental legislation,” said Jørn Dohrmann, a Danish MEP. “Social legislation is a national matter that should be dealt with by member states. There is an unfortunate tendency to try to have a policy pretending to be a different kind of policy to achieve necessary competence.”

“The measure is already on the table so we have to manage,” said Michel Dantin, the MEP in charge of the file. “The difficulty will be to find a balance between the different viewpoints.”

“For the Romanians, for example, there is an issue with the Roma that will be a stress point for the discussions,” he added.

Commission officials rejected the criticism, saying that the language on marginalized people is a clear reply to the petition and a push from the European Parliament to improve citizens’ access to water.

“The Commission considers that this article is proportionate to the objective that it set itself to achieve,” said Enrico Brivio, the Commission environment spokesperson.

According to the Commission, it used two criteria — marginalization, or isolation from the rest of the society, and vulnerability, the fact that a group is more exposed than others to risks — to determine which groups should be included on the list.

“The definition proposed leaves a wide margin of maneuver on purpose [for] member states to define groups that are relevant at national level [since] these groups may differ from one member state to another,” said the spokesperson.

The same Commission official said that the institution has legal standing to include the provision as an objective to protect human health and because an increase in drinkable tap water could reduce marine litter caused by plastic bottles.

It remains to be seen whether environment ministers from the EU will agree when discussions begin at the Environment Council on June 25. EU diplomats and citizens hope the meeting will provide some clarity on how to move forward with the proposal.

“This directive has become a Frankenstein’s monster, because it is half drinking water and half other pieces of legislation,” said Pablo Sanchez Centellas, communication policy officer for the European Public Service Union, one of the organizations that spearheaded the initiative.

“It really puzzles me in the process why they decided to do something that led to this opposition. I don’t want to think they did it on purpose but if you’re so ambitious why not just overhaul the whole thing?”