Dear Water Europe friends,
Europe’s water agenda has entered a new phase. After years of building political recognition and developing strategies, the focus is increasingly shifting towards implementation and delivery. President Ursula von der Leyen made this clear in her State of the Union address last week. By explicitly linking water scarcity to Europe’s climate resilience and announcing a new European Water Initiative among the Commission’s priorities, she confirmed what Water Europe has long advocated. Water can no longer be managed solely within an environmental silo. It is a strategic resource for Europe’s economy, society and environment, and a cornerstone of our resilience, competitiveness and independence.
The ambition, however, must match the scale of the challenge. Europe cannot build water resilience through leakage reduction alone, nor can this initiative become a major announcement followed by limited action or further fragmentation of the EU water acquis. A truly resilient Europe must go further, and the direction is clear. Europe must accelerate its transition towards a Water-Smart Society and Economy.
This message was reinforced during our meeting with Commissioner Jessika Roswall last week. The strong alignment between the Water Resilience Strategy and our vision for a Water-Smart Society and Economy creates a clear opportunity to turn policy ambition into implementation. Water Europe’s strength lies precisely in its unique ability to bring together the actors needed to collaborate, advocate, innovate and deliver change at scale.
In two weeks, we will continue this discussion at Water Innovation Europe 2026 in Dublin on 13–14 October. Under the theme “Raising the Bar for the Water Framework Directive”, our flagship event will bring together policymakers, industry, investors, innovators and researchers to address financing, circular water solutions, Water-Smart Industry and the Water Resilience Investment Accelerator, and to explore how we can turn ambition into implementation and accelerate the transition towards a Water-Smart Society and Economy across Europe.
But policy and regulation, important as they are in the water sector, will not deliver this transformation on their own.
As a water community, we also carry responsibility for implementation. We cannot use the absence of perfect regulatory clarity as a reason to postpone action. If we always wait for policy to be clear, we risk acting only when a crisis is already upon us. There is much we can do today. Now is the moment to move decisively from ambition to action.
