From left to right: Marion Platta (Die Linke), Daniel Buchholz (SPD), Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians), Silke Gebel (Die Grünen) in Berlin, March 29.
Representatives of the Social Democratic Party (the SPD), The Left (Die Linke) and The Greens (Die Grünen) in Berlin’s House of Representatives have expressed support for Berlin, Germany to become a blue community.
Significantly, the SPD, The Left, and The Greens together hold 92 seats in the 160-member House that governs the city-state of 3.7 million people. The Governing Mayor of Berlin, who is the head of government and who presides over the Senate of Berlin (the executive), is a member of the SPD.
A ‘blue community’ is a municipality that recognizes the human right to water, opposes the sale of bottled water in public facilities, and promotes publicly financed, owned and operated water and wastewater services. Global blue communities include, Paris, France, Cambuquira, Brazil, and St. Gallen and Bern in Switzerland.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow was recently in Berlin to support our blue community campaign.
On March 29, Barlow spoke about blue communities at the House of Representatives along with three elected representatives of the House — Daniel Buchholz (SPD), Marion Platta (Die Linke) and Silke Gebel (Die Grünen).
Barlow tells us, “The three parties came together to host an evening on Berlin becoming a Blue Community. It was packed, about 90 people, including the Berliner Wassertisch (Berlin Water Table) activists who initiated the event, conservation groups, workers and anti-bottled water groups.”
Berliner Wassertisch notes that all three factions of the new Berlin-based red-green-green coalition endorsed the idea of Berlin as a blue community.
For more on our blue communities campaign, please click here.
