Commission seeks dialogue on Europe’s deepening water crisis

euronews (in English)

The EU executive wants to hear from governments, civil society and industry as yet another report highlights the scale of the EU’s failure to clean up its rivers, lakes and seas.

Transcript

00:00Pollution, overconsumption, waste. These are the three biggest problems Europeans say they

00:07face with water. But it also includes devastating floods on one hand and the threat of desertification

00:14on the other. According to the European Commission's State of Water Report, the EU's water resources

00:20are under significant pressure.

00:22Less than 40% of our EU surface water bodies achieve good ecological status with healthy

00:30ecosystems being home to many species and with water able to regenerate itself. And

00:37only a quarter achieve good chemical status, meaning that the relevant thresholds of hazardous

00:43substances are not exceeded. Many Member States recognise that this is a big problem. Some

00:49progress has been made over the last years, but there is still a lot of work to do.

00:55The Commissioner said that the EU has directives and recommendations, but their implementation

01:00is not perfect. Therefore, the Executive will initiate a dialogue with various sectoral

01:05representatives as well as with the Member States.

01:09We need to do more to ensure the security of our water supply because citizens need

01:14clean water, farmers and businesses need a stable water supply, and we need to protect

01:20our fresh and marine waters to reduce flood risks. Because the cost of inaction is too

01:26high, knowing the situation will become worse.

01:30Based on the current reports, the European Commission will present an EU water resilience

01:35strategy this spring.

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