World water issues to play second fiddle to EU's own backyard
Europe is becoming aware of how global water shortages could result in new conflicts and create millions of water refugees in the developing world, but on the occasion of the UN's World Water Day, the upcoming Portuguese EU presidency showed far more interest in ensuring sound water management in its own backyard.
"Because of the consequences of climate change there's a real danger [water] scarcity will get worse not better and fewer people will have access to safe water in future," German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel told a gathering of European water management experts in Brussels on Thursday (22 March), referring to the UN's millennium goal of halving by 2015 the global number of 1.1 billion people who do not have clean water to drink.
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The minister underlined that out of the total figure, 465 million are children, who are already dying in droves from dirty water-linked gastro-enterological disease in places such as the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Far East.
Studies predict that melting glaciers in the Himalayas pose a serious risk to Asian drinking water resources. The World Bank estimates bad water management will cut supplies by 50 percent in North Africa by 2050.
"We need to be aware there's a world outside Europe," Mr Gabriel went on. "There's a political dimension here - if we don't get climate change under control and the Himalayan glaciers start to melt, we will endanger 40 percent of drinking water in Asia."
"The refugee crisis in Africa will also be far worse in the future and lead to war because of water," he said, even as the EU's border management agency - Frontex - gears up for another summer of African migrants trying to reach Europe in rickety boats.
Speaking at a parallel event in Rome, development commissioner Louis Michel urged that "Good regional governance of water basins - from the point of view of conflict prevention and natural catastrophes - is of capital importance." The Belgian politician added that "Each time we open a tap, I'm talking about rich countries, we should be aware that this is a privilege. Access to good water must become reality for all."
It would be unfair to say the EU's commitment to the global water challenge ends in pretty words, with EU states just two weeks back agreeing to cut greenhouse gas emissions and use more renewable energy by a factor of 20 percent by 2020 in the hope they inspire the world's other biggest polluters - the US and China - into wider action on climate change.
Water management as a tool of conflict prevention is also climbing the agenda in terms of EU foreign policy, with a large chunk of the EU's €719 million budget for Central Asia aid in 2007 to 2013 devoted to drinking and irrigation water provision. In Gaza, EU states are investing over €20 million into water treatment plants despite the fact the US has pulled many of its Palestine water projects, citing unsafe working conditions.
In terms of broader development aid, the European Commission between 2006 and 2010 plans to invest €230 million into 97 water projects in African, Caribbean and Pacific states as well as using international trade bodies to try and pull in private sector investors to build pumps, wells and pipes in deprived zones. Focusing on one project in Tanzania, Mr Michel said that just €1.6 million of EU cash will bring drinking water to 40,000 people living in the rural Njombe district in the next three years.
But the EU policy picture as well as the integrity of EU public concerns on global water problems remain open to doubt. Many analysts fear the EU's ambitious climate change goals could unravel as member states get down to business on who will pay what for the "industrial revolution" needed to bring them about. The main thrust of the EU's new Central Asia policy is to secure gas and oil for Europeans, not water for Asians.
Mr Michel's policy came under attack this week by a coalition of over 60 NGOs which say Brussels' focus on private sector investment in water projects is doing more to help giant water management corporations get an edge in emerging markets than to bring water to urban poor.
The EU public - which is quick to tick the "yes" box in opinion surveys on global concerns - itself spends more than €25 billion a year drinking fancy bottled water, despite UN statistics suggesting that an extra spend of some €12 billion a year would bring the 2015 millennium development goal within reach.
The UN's World Water Day was launched in 1992 to help generate interest in global water problems and raise cash for new projects. The day is being marked by a variety of events around the world and in several EU states including Austria, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden as well as Australia, the US, Canada, Brazil, India, Iran, Mexico and Kenya.
The Portuguese agenda
In this wider context, the Portuguese environment minister Francisco Nunes Correia's contribution to the water and climate debate in Brussels on Thursday struck a rather feeble note. The minister, who will become part of Portugal's six-month EU presidency team in July, said Lisbon's main water priority will be to midwife a new directive on water scarcity and drought problems in Europe by the end of the year.
"Water scarcity and drought constitutes a priority of the forthcoming Portuguese presidency. We feel it should be deeply embedded in EU environmental [policy]," he said in reference to a July 2007 European Commission "communication" on drought prevention, with Portugal hoping to transform the soft law instrument into a hard directive before its presidency mandate expires.
The communication will contain "a complete and specific regulation of water scarcity and drought impacts at EU level, plus analysis of measures that need to be adopted" Mr Correia went on, foreseeing "recommendations on specific actions" as well investment cost and funding breakdowns, with Portugal and Spain - both with large farming sectors - set to be among the worst hit EU states commercially-speaking when climate change begins to bite in Europe.
The Portuguese minister went on to praise Portuguese and Spanish cooperation on management of shared river basins in the Duoro and Tajo river systems, which began in the 1990s - well before the EU started to tackle river basins in 2000.
His keynote 10 minute speech failed to pick up on Mr Gabriel's "hot topic" of global water shortages however, and neglected to mention that both Portugal and Spain are currently facing EU court action for breaches of EU water pollution law.