Water is a vital but increasingly scarce resource. Almost two-thirds of European citizens consider the quality and/or quantity of water in their country to be a serious problem. Climate change will further affect the availability, quality and quantity of water. Without action, water scarcity and poverty could affect ever-larger segments of civil societies around the world, with far-reaching implications for food security, the environment, human health, as well as economic, social and political stability.
The EU has to some extent anticipated these challenges by creating legal frameworks to protect and manage our fresh and marine water resources. However, many of these goals have not been achieved mainly due to insufficient funding, slow implementation and insufficient integration of environmental objectives into sectoral policies. Existing tools remain fragmented and water-related objectives are not sufficiently integrated into all EU policies. Considering the challenges at stake, the current EU policy framework is not fit for purpose. Rescale required.
From Green to Blue EU Deal
In this context, The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), is working on water as a cross-cutting issue in 2023. With the aim of building an integrated approach to European water policies, the EESC will adopt a series of opinions, examining the issue from sectoral perspectives and formulating specific proposals.
At a high-level conference on “Call for an EU Blue Deal” in October 2023, the EESC will announce its proposals and call on the European Commission to start treating water as a priority at European level.
The main points of the EESC’s proposals are:
1. Access to water and water geopolitics
With an emphasis on ensuring clean and sufficient water resources and accelerating work on access to water globally. As unequal access to clean and affordable water greatly affects social instability and thereby reshapes global geopolitics, attention will be paid to anticipating and mitigating the potential negative impacts of increased migration and international conflict caused by issues that related to water.
2. Sustainable water management
Emphasis will be placed on how to reduce water consumption and better manage water and wastewater used and produced by households, public administration, agriculture and industries, especially aquifers. Water efficient technologies and EU water distribution networks will be analyzed from the triple perspective of efficiency, sustainability and resilience.
3. Economics of the Blue Deal for the EU
The focus will be on the investment needs for a sustainable, competitive and fair ‘blue transition’ in Europe and how to tackle water poverty resulting from rising prices due to resource scarcity.
The EU framework is insufficient
As water scarcity and pollution remain global challenges, the current EU policy framework appears insufficient. To address this, high-level water experts gathered on 27 February at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to identify possible solutions.
In the summer of 2022, droughts, forest fires and floods were reported across the continent, with the year being the most severe drought in Europe in 500 years. While the EU Green Deal has a number of proposals that address sectoral water-related issues, these goals are not well integrated into all EU policies. Given the challenges at stake, a change of scale is needed to avoid the mistakes of the past made with the energy policies, as the EESC considers.
At the high-level meeting, EESC President Christa Schweng pointed out that “the EU has an opportunity to position itself as a pioneer in the water sector. We need to ensure that the water dimension is truly integrated into every policy area. The way forward can only be together, with joint and coordinated actions at the regional, national and European level”.
The European Parliament has also recently called for an EU water strategy. Pernille Weiss, Member of the European Parliament and chair of the European Parliament’s Water Group, stressed the urgent need for close cooperation between the EESC and the European Parliament on this issue: “We need to work together for a truly innovative Blue Deal in the European Union. Both the United States and China have water strategies. My hope is that Europe will step forward and become a model for how to take care of water resources.”
Pietro Francesco De Lotto, president of the Consultative Committee for Industrial Change (CCMI), underlined the industrial dimension of water: “Water is a public resource that is both scarce and strategic. Many industrial sectors, such as textiles, chemicals, steel and power generation, simply cannot function without water. Water efficient technologies are an important part of the solution we need, not just for industry, but for the whole of society.”
The EESC will push for a comprehensive EU water strategy with a series of own-initiative opinions that will include proposals on securing clean water resources, valuing water for the benefit of citizens, industry and society as a whole, anticipating and mitigating the potential negative impacts of international conflicts caused by water-related issues and sustainable water management.
Salla Saastamoinen, deputy director general of the Joint Research Center (JRC), said that “the European Commission is participating in the United Nations water conference in 2023,” but it ended up with wishful thinking and a voluntary action plan which is not enough, as scientists and activists warn
Oliver Röpke, chairman of the EESC Workers’ Group, emphasized the importance of water as a human right: “Solidarity and sustainability must be at the heart of our solutions. The EESC is committed to ensuring that the EU delivers on this issue, which is so important to our citizens and our common future.”
