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The EU must urgently address water shortages and find new ways to finance improvements to its leaky pipes, the bloc’s environment commissioner has said.
Jessika Roswall, who took up the role in December, told the Financial Times that the EU’s relentless focus on securing energy after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had come at the expense of efforts to address a water supply crisis that was set to have a big impact on business.
“We have talked too little about water and we have talked about energy efficiency and energy, energy, energy. This is really important, of course, but water is also really important and we have a scarcity in Europe,” she said.
“Businesses understand this now because we have had droughts in Europe and then we see that nuclear plants don’t really function and we see the transportation on big rivers doesn’t function . . . this is an urgent question,” Roswall added.
Water scarcity affects a fifth of EU land and almost a third of its population each year, according to the biggest survey yet of the state of the bloc’s water published by the European Environment Agency in October.
Droughts have also “dramatically increased” in number and intensity in the EU, with the areas and people affected rising almost 20 per cent between 1976 and 2006, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Farmers in particular have suffered steep drops in crop yields, but the impact of water stress will impact industries from textiles to hydrogen production, which requires water for the electrolysis process.
Despite the concerns about increasing pressure on industry and agriculture, little has been done to improve the bloc’s notoriously leaky pipes.
Almost a quarter of treated water is lost during distribution, according to European Commission figures.
Asked whether consumers would have to pay higher water bills, Roswall said that this was a matter for municipalities but added that “we need to look at new innovative ways of financing” pipes and purification facilities.
Roswall, a centre-right Swedish politician, whose party opposed a landmark law to restore and protect nature in the EU, is also responsible for chemicals legislation, recycling and reuse of materials and preserving biodiversity.
The bloc’s ambitious environmental legislation is among the most contested by member states and industries that complain it has resulted in too much red tape. It was also a key concern of farmers in major protests that brought European capitals to a standstill earlier this year.
Businesses wanted “predictability and certainty”, Roswall said. “I hear from various directions that there are laws that don’t seem to fit together, they are overlapping, but they don’t function together . . . we need to see that the regulations are as simple as possible.”
“It will not be easy,” she added. “I didn’t take this job because it’s going to be easy.”
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