The European Parliament published its draft own-initiative report on water resilience on Thursday 30 January. With this initial text, the institution is giving itself the means to influence the European Commission in drawing up its strategy, which will be presented by this summer and on which work will begin on Tuesday 4 February.
The European strategy will have to provide responses to the water stress already present in Europe (affecting 20% of the territory and 30% of the population every year), to “prolonged drought, extreme heat and large-scale flooding events”.
Several European targets already exist, such as restoring freshwater ecosystems and 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by 2030.
The draft report has highlighted the responsibility of two main sectors: industry, which “accounts for approximately 40% of all water abstraction in Europe”, and agriculture, which is “the largest net consumer of water in the EU” and “the most significant source of pressure on both surface and groundwater, as a result of water use and pollution from the intensive use of nutrients and pesticides”.
The existing EU policy framework in this area exists, but is “poorly implemented, underfunded and barely enforced”, points out the draft report submitted by the rapporteur, Thomas Bajada (S&D, Maltese). The latter, for example, called for “full” implementation of the ‘European Green Deal’ to improve the situation.
In fact, according to the Maltese MEP, the water resilience strategy should be used to address the issue of water across the board, through “all EU policies”. This would require an assessment of the impact of each EU policy on water resources.
Thomas Bajada is calling for binding measures, which he believes will involve “urgent” action to combat pollution caused by pharmaceutical products, increased monitoring of pesticide pollution and the establishment of standards for PFAS content in groundwater and surface water. The MEP is also calling on the agricultural sector to make the transition to a sustainable model.
In general, the MEP is urging the European Commission and the Member States to provide support as well as legislate to encourage water reuse practices.
The parliamentarians felt that the management and monitoring of “water quality, leakages, use and resources” could be improved by innovative technological solutions.
To be effective, the European water resilience strategy will need a “separate and dedicated fund”, according to MEPs, in the next long-term budgetary framework, otherwise known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034. The existence of a dedicated budget line would, according to the Parliament, make it possible to “direct targeted investments towards essential water resilience measures”.
See the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/fbi (Original version in French by Florent Servia)