Partners

All Policies For a Healthy Europe

European Benchmarking Co-operation

European Raw Materials Alliance

Intergroup Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development

History

A small group of water supply professionals from the original six EEC member states met in 1972 to provide an opinion on the 4th draft directive on water meters, presented by DG III (industrial affairs) of the European Commission.

Following from this initial collaboration and that the EEC was making more legislation on water, these sectoral professionals decided to set up an official association representing their water supply companies.

This culminated in the establishment of EurEau on 21 March, 1975.

EurEau extended the scope of its work to include waste water in 1998.

As the EU grew, so did EurEau membership. Countries from outside the EU also joined the federation. We now include 34 members from 29 countries across Europe.

We bring national water professionals together to agree European water industry positions regarding the management of water quality, resource efficiency and access to water.

One thing hasn’t changed. Our members are fully committed to the continuous supply of clean water and its safe return into the water cycle.

List of EurEau Presidents

~ 1975-1977 Albert Achten	BE	SG Gilbert Bury
~ 1977-1979 Jean-Claude Legrand	FR
~ 1979-1981 Ernest Reiter	LU
~ 1981-1983 Piet Knoppert	NL
~ 1983-1985 Heinz Tessendorff	DE	SG Francis Rillaerts
~ 1985-1988 Ken Roberts	UK
~ 1988-1990 Germano Bulgarelli	IT
~ 1990-1992 Jean-Pierre Quinio	FR
~ 1992-1994 Ernest Reiter	LU
~ 1994-1996 Albert Desmed	BE
~ 1996-1998 Theo Martijn	NL
~ 1998-2000 Ortwin Scholz	DE
~ 2000-2002 Fernando Porta	ES
~ 2002-2003 Pamela Taylor	UK
~ 2003-2004 Michael Phillips	IE
~ 2004-2005 Anders Baekgaard	DK	SG Fréderic de Hemptinne
~ 2005-2006 C. Martins	PT
~ 2006-2007 Mauro d’Ascenzi	IT	SG Pierre-Yves Monette
~ 2007-2008 Daniel Villessot	FR
~ 2008-2009 Andreas Angelakis	GR
~ 2009-2011 Klara Ramm Szatkiewicz	PL
~ 2011-2015 Carl-Emil Larsen	DK	SG Almut Bonhage
~ 2015-2019 Bruno Tisserand	FR	SG Neil Dhot (interim)
~ 2019-present Dr Claudia Castell-Exner	DE	SG Oliver Loebel (2016)

Our Articles of Association can be found pdf here (243 KB) .

About our sector

Water is essential for life. The European water sector provides clean, safe and healthy drinking water and ensures that waste water is returned to nature in a way that preserves our environment.

What appears to be a simple day-to-day service is in reality the result of complex processes and advanced technologies. Each solution is adapted to the specific local circumstances. They depend on factors such as population density, the type and available quantity of water resources, required treatment levels, local topography and many other elements.

EurEau members supply 500 million people with 44.7 billion m³ of clean drinking water annually, while 450 million people are connected to a waste water collection network and 435 million people are connected to one of over 18.000 waste water treatment plant.