The European Parliament endorsed (07.05.25) its own-initiative report on the European Union’s Water Resilience Strategy to be presented by the European Commission on 4 June 2025.

EurEau welcomes this report and its many positive elements. First and foremost, MEPs support a holistic source-to-sea approach to water management to ensure that our citizens, businesses and nature have access to sufficient water in the right quality for generations to come. The report reaffirms that access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right.

MEPs also call on the Commission to make water resilience funding available for modernising water infrastructure, sustainable water management, nature-based solutions and innovative water-efficient technologies. This is perfectly in line with the EU’s Preparedness Union Strategy recently published by the Commission.

Other positive aspects include the call for action in favour of increased water efficiency and the endorsement of the precautionary, control-at-source, and polluter-pays principles.

It’s not all good news however. The final vote highlighted the divisions in the Parliament regarding a prompt and far-reaching PFAS ban. The amendment approved in the plenary shows a slightly strengthened ambition level in favour of protecting people’s health.

Last but not least, the EP report contains a call to reassess the impact of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes in the UWWTD on the pharmaceutical industry. We are confident that more data will become available over the next years. Any new assessment should not delay the implementation of the directive. After all, quaternary treatment to remove micropollutants from wastewater is one of the building blocks to achieve water resilience.