Dear Water Europe friends,
The Water Innovation Europe 2025 conference is now behind us, but the messages it delivered could not be clearer: “Without financing in place, the Water Resilience Strategy risks remaining a dream’’.
The energy throughout the conference was remarkably strong. Among the outstanding speakers we welcomed, I was especially grateful to see Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, take the stage and emphasize that we have now definitively entered the implementation phase of the strategy. It is time to put the right actions forward to protect the resource we should take the least for granted: water.
As our position paper on the MFF highlights, the Multiannual Financial Framework is a key tool for delivering a comprehensive and cross-cutting framework for water investment, one that generates co-benefits for health, employment, economic resilience, and defence. The EU must scale up blended finance instruments and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to channel private capital into water resilience.
This week, we also released our position paper on ”The European Water Academy‘ which outlines how the EU Water Academy can equip professionals with the skills needed to implement Europe’s Water Resilience Strategy, fostering innovation, inclusiveness, and digital readiness across the sector.
As the Water Innovation Europe 2025 conference also brought forward, technologies alone cannot succeed without the right people and structures in place. We need resources, not only financial, but also human capital. The Water Resilience Strategy is designed to address both.
Next week, from the 2nd to the 4th of December, we will gather again in Brussels for Water Knowledge Europe 2025, another opportunity to bring people together, exchange project ideas, and lay the foundations for the solutions and tools Europe urgently needs. I look forward to meeting you all there!
