EU Water Policy is aimed at ensuring the access to good quality and sufficient water while guaranteeing the good status of all water bodies across Europe through long-term sustainable management.

However, after two River Basin Management Plans, the progress achieved is far from the objectives set out for 2030. The current ecological status reported during the third cycle is even showing a deterioration of some European water bodies. It became clear that new initiatives were needed to achieve the European environmental objectives. 

In recent years there have been various types of initiatives aimed at accelerating Europe's climate transition and achieving sustainability according to the European Green Deal and the European Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters. Thus, there are new regulations (Nature Restoration Law), new strategies (Biodiversity Strategy for 2030; Climate Adaptation Strategy) and new action plans (Circular Economy; Zero Pollution; Protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries). To this should be added the increased presence of European Partnerships (Water4All; EU4Ocean; Biodiversa+; Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership) and the new Blue Economy approach, which increases the focus on sustainability. 

In addition, new actions of great importance are currently being developed, such as the Water Resilient Strategy, the European Blue Deal and the new Knowledge and Innovation Community on Water, Marine and Maritime Sectors and Ecosystems. 

These institutional changes define European priorities in the pursuit of sustainability and could be summarised as follows: 

• Restoration of the biodiversity that has been lost. 
• Adaptation to climate change with a focus on generating quality information. 
• Advancing the climate transition without harming economic activity and welfare of the people. 
• Minimise the generation of waste both through innovations that reduce emissions and through new uses for each natural resource extracted. 
• Increasing the resilience of the European water sector. 
• Strengthen the financing of innovation, both from public and private sectors. 

European objectives and priorities are broad and ambitious, and new initiatives can be expected in the coming years that will substantially change the way in which objectives are translated into concrete European climate action. 

Author: Marcos García López - Researcher | IMDEA Water Institute