Acceso usuarios
Sevilla, España
El derecho humano al abastecimiento y al saneamiento (DHAS) constituye hoy en España y en Europa la bandera de un movimiento que se articula en torno al concepto del agua como bien común y que se orienta al objetivo de construir un modelo de gestión pública participativa y transparente. La materialización efectiva del DHAS se relaciona discursivamente con la titularidad pública o privada de los operadores de los servicios urbanos de agua, lo que ha contribuido a la reactivación de los debates sobre la necesidad de conservar o recuperar el carácter público de estos servicios, y sobre la necesidad de generar marcos jurídicos que garanticen políticas de democracia local efectiva. A esta dimensión sociopolítica, se añade otra característica: el movimiento del DHAS en España sintoniza en discurso y articulación organizativa con las perspectivas socio-eco-integradoras de la gestión del agua como recurso natural, de los ecosistemas acuáticos. Ésta es una cualidad importante y en cierta manera distintiva de la experiencia española, que contrasta con los desencuentros y conflictos que frecuentemente caracterizan a las perspectivas social y ambiental en los movimientos de defensa del agua, y en general de los recursos naturales. Complementariamente a lo anterior, este artículo presenta un nuevo enfoque de la tipología de pobrezas hídricas. La reciente recepción del DHAS en los países europeos se ha focalizado especialmente en la asequibilidad (prohibición de cortes, garantía del mínimo vital, tarifas sociales) y en las implicaciones para la gobernanza (transparencia, rendición de cuentas) y el modelo de gestión (publico versus privado). No obstante, a lo largo de la investigación que se presenta, se ha constatado que la accesibilidad sigue siendo un problema significativo en ciertas regiones europeas, relacionado especialmente con la existencia de asentamientos marginales, chabolismo, personas sin hogar o trabajadores temporeros inmigrantes en áreas rurales. Finalmente, este artículo aborda la cuestión de la regulación legal del derecho humano al agua en España, analizando las claves de este proceso y presentando las últimas propuestas del movimiento del DHAS en el que sus autores conceptualmente se sitúan. Desde un punto de vista teórico (ecología política urbana) y metodológico (investigación-acción participativa transdisciplinar), el artículo se ha desarrollado en el doble marco en el que los autores se desenvuelven. Por una parte, el grupo de trabajo de ciclo urbano del agua de la Fundación Nueva Cultura de Agua (https://fnca.eu/oppa/ciclo-urbano-del-agua); y, por otra, la Red de Excelencia de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación sobre pobreza hídrica (WAPONET, CSO2017-90702-REDT, https://waponet.org/approach/).
Until very recently, the debates on the concept of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) , typical of Latin American countries or other regions of the Global South, have not resonated strongly in the debates about water in the Spanish and European contexts. However, since the beginning of the economic recession in 2008, and as a result of the consequent emergence of situations of poverty and precariousness, the concern to defend the recognition and implementation of this right has become more present. The declaration of the HRWS by the United Nations in 2010 (United Nations 2010a, 2010b), coinciding with this historical juncture, has promoted processes and debates around its effective implementation at an international, European and Spanish level. The current health crisis and the consequent economic debacle caused by COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 have updated the urgency of the debate on the HRWS.In 2015, the plenary session of the European Parliament supported the citizens’ initiative Right2Water, which sought to guarantee the right to water for all people and the transposition of the HRWS into the legislation of member states. The current reform process of the Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC) is justified, among other reasons, by the need to adapt these regulations to the aforementioned commitment to coherence. The Right2Water initiative was transferred to Spain, mainly thanks to the encouragement of the Association of Public Water Supply and Sanitation Operators (Asociación de Operadores Públicos de Abastecimiento y Saneamiento Agua, AEOPAS), within the framework of the statewide Public Water Network (Red Agua Pública, RAP), through the Social Pact for Public Water (Pacto Social por el Agua Pública, PSAP). The effects of the economic crisis also coincided with privatization processes of water services that, justified by austerity policies, European institutions promoted in the countries most affected. This was carried out despite strong social opposition. In some of these countries, such as Spain, the process of privatization has been particularly related to the search for funding by municipalities in crisis, through the perverse mechanism of the ‘concession fee’, which allows for a rapid injection of money into the municipal treasury in exchange for a decades-long privatization of the service. This process is usually accompanied by increasing rates and putting greater pressure on users with payment problems. The relations between the causes and consequences of the crisis and privatization, as well as the emergence of situations of water poverty of different types, have led to the present existence of a social movement with a firm discourse committed to defending the human right to water, as well as the model of public management. At the same time, the existence of public water management companies, which formally maintain public ownership of the service but practice a mercantile management style (priority of profit and loss accounts, opacity, consideration of users as clients) has led to demands to renew public management models to guarantee compliance with the human right to water in a broad and deep sense. This is redefined in an antagonistic way: a recognition of access to drinking water and sanitation as a human right rigorously conceived that puts into question the neoliberal logic of managing water services. One of the core arguments this article puts forward is the following: the HRWS constitutes the banner of a movement that is today articulated around the concept of water as a common good and that is oriented towards the objective of building a collaborative and transparent model of public management. The ownership of water and sanitation services operators (in their different modalities, from strictly public to strictly private formulas) is related to the implementation of the HRWS, which contributes to the reactivation of debates on the need to preserve or recover (‘remunicipalización’) the public character of these services. Moreover, there is the need to generate legal frameworks that guarantee effective local democratic policies. To this social dimension, which is committed to public and democratic dimensions, and open to new debates on common goods management, another characteristic is added: the human rights movement in Spain has been in tune from the beginning, both in discourse and organizational structure, with the socio-eco-integrating perspectives of natural resources and aquatic ecosystems management. This is the foundation of the possibility of implementing the human right to water, and signifies a relevant and somewhat distinctive quality of the Spanish experience. It contrasts, however, with the unfortunate, although historically explainable, disagreements and conflicts that frequently characterize the social and environmental perspectives of the movements in defense of water. In addition to the above, this article presents a new approach for the typology of water poverties. Until recently, the efforts that have been carried out in the implementation of the HRWS have been focused especially on accessibility, condemning and trying to alleviate the deficits in supply and sanitation coverage in the Global South. In contrast, its recent reception in European countries has focused especially on affordability (the prohibition of cuts, the guarantee of a vital minimum, social rates), on the implications for governance (transparency, accountability) and on the management model (public versus private). However, through this research it has been found that accessibility remains a significant problem in certain European regions, especially related to the existence of marginal settlements, slums, homelessness, temporary immigrant workers in rural areas, etc. The problem of HRWS is thus situated in the broader context of access to housing and dignified living conditions, and is related to the marginalization and exclusion of groups or social sectors, due to various factors, generally combined, of economic, cultural and/or ethnic nature. Finally, another issue that this article addresses is the question of the legal regulation of the human right to water in Spain. It will seem strange to a non-expert observer of this matter that after the intense concern, organization and reflection on the subjects that have been mentioned, and which are presented in detail below and in a country with such a long tradition of water policy and legislation as Spain, we lack a state or autonomic-wide regulatory framework for the management of urban water. And not only do we still lack this or these framework(s) but we have been discussing their need for many years (the jurisdictions and responsibilities over the urban cycle are municipal) and, if they are really needed, their nature, contents and scale of formulation. The article analyzes the key points of this process and ends by presenting the latest propositions on this matter from the HRWS social movement in which its authors are conceptually situated. From a theoretical (urban political ecology) and methodological (trans-disciplinary participatory research-action) point of view, the article has been developed through the double framework in which the authors operate: on the one hand, the working group on the urban water cycle of the New Water Culture Foundation (Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua) and, on the other, the Research Networks of Excellence of the National Research Agency on water poverty (WAPONET, CSO2017-90702-REDT), made up of researchers from seven Spanish universities (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Politécnica de Catalunya, Oberta de Catalunya, Jaume I de Castellón, Alicante, Oviedo, Granada and Sevilla). As a space for trans-disciplinary action-participation on which this work has been specifically based, mention should be made of the Andalusian Social Committee on Water (Mesa Social del Agua de Andalucía), whose composition and main activities between 2017 and 2020 are reflected throughout these pages. We owe the information, ideas and experiences to all the colleagues who participate in these spaces, where we carried out a real process of co-production of knowledge, through years of collaborative work.
