- 27 October 2026
Esther Rasenberg
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Despite EU water laws, the drinking water supply system shows serious cracks in several regions in the European Union. Good water governance and its enforcement are essential to safeguard the access to clean drinking water on our continent. The European Commission is stepping up its efforts to protect access to clean and healthy drinking water in the near future, but the road ahead will be winding.
How can persistent drinking water problems remain while new ones are popping up everywhere in Europe, when appropriate European water laws are in place? After investigating real-life situations in several European Member States, the answers are obvious. There are shortcomings in governance and in the implementation and enforcement of existing legislation, alongside a significant investment challenge. There are also challenges in controlling pollution at source and applying the Polluter Pays Principle consistently. All these things can be addressed, but this needs to be done quickly, because reversing these kind of developments will be hard.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/SCXccuqL1-0?feature=oembedVideo: Yanick Hamerlynck
Writing about the European water sector is like looking into a kaleidoscope with dazzling, different colours. Each Member State has its own landscape, from snowy mountains and green meadows to extensive deltas and near-deserts. Every country has its own water politics, and drinking water services are organised differently across Europe, reflecting different geographical and governance contexts, which can make comparisons between countries complex. River basins cross international borders and flow through areas with different regulations. Implementing unified water laws to save our drinking water in this landscape requires a high level of political commitment and action by all EU politicians, companies and citizens.
As we have all seen during this extremely hot summer, providing safe drinking water in the European Union will become increasingly challenging. Due to climate change, pollution, leakage and population growth the drinking water supply is under pressure. More people and companies need clean and safe drinking water. Not only for drinking and washing in households, but also to provide healthy food for everyone. EU water legislation provides a common legal framework, while the details of implementation and governance are largely left to individual Member States. The sector is also facing a significant investment gap, making it more challenging to maintain and strengthen resilient drinking water services across Europe.
Introduction of new water initiative
The urgency to act is felt in Brussels. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced a new water initiative during the State of the Union (SOTEU) on Wednesday 16 September. The main objectives of this new water initiative are to reduce leakage and address the climate insurance gap. According to Von der Leyen this summer some 12 million tonnes of crops were lost due to drought and water scarcity. “Key rivers like the Danube, the Rhine and La Garonne are disappearing before our eyes”, she stated.
“We need stronger prevention, investment, monitoring, and enforcement.”
European Commissioner Jessika Roswall, responsible for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, already introduced a water resilience strategy last year. The main objective of this strategy is to preserve clean water for everybody. Roswall acknowledges that in some regions, the access to drinking water is coming under growing pressure. “Rural areas and vulnerable communities can face particular challenges. EU laws, especially the Drinking Water Directive and the Water Framework Directive, give Member States a strong basis for protecting water sources, ensuring the safety of supplied water, and preparing for future risks. Even so, in some parts of the EU, access to safe drinking water is clearly under strain so we need stronger prevention, investment, monitoring, and enforcement.”
A lack of good water governance?
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations, every water crisis is a governance crisis. “We know that water needs to be at the centre of the global political agenda”, states the organisation on their website. But how do you deal with it in real life? The organisation of European Water Regulators WAREG brings together authorities from EU and non-EU countries to learn from each other. “They can see how other authorities deal with tariffs, investment, efficiency, service quality, consumer protection, data and emerging regulatory challenges. What matters is that responsibilities are clear, institutions have adequate capacity, are independent, decisions are transparent and accountable, and consumers are effectively protected”, declares WAREG President Vera Eíro.
For the EU drinking water sector that is a sore point. It is fragmented, and responsibilities are divided differently across Member States. In some countries, municipalities are responsible for drinking water supply. In others, that responsibility lies with drinking water companies. “The Drinking Water Directive establishes the level of drinking water safety that must be achieved but leaves the institutional organisation and a large part of water governance to the Member States”, says Roswall.
“Strengthening implementation and enforcement is a big priority.”
The EU Commissioner for water resilience is carrying out structured dialogues with all Member States on the enforcement of existing water legislation because of the existing implementation gaps. “Strengthening implementation and enforcement is a big priority. We are using several tools: periodical reviews, monitoring through the European Environment Agency, and infringement procedures where needed. The aim is not just to develop better EU legislation, but to make sure the rules already in place are properly applied in practice so that implementation gaps can be closed. When persistent problems are found, including in areas such as pollution or the protection of drinking water, the European Commission can take enforcement action. At the same time, effective enforcement depends heavily on the inspection and control systems put in place by Member States themselves”, says Roswall.
Water pricing
The EU has several laws that contribute to ‘good water governance’. One important principle in the Water Framework Directive is the ‘Cost Recovery Principle’ (Article 9). This means that investments in water infrastructure should be reflected in the price of water. From that perspective many authorities or regulators in different European Member States are not charging enough for clean and safe drinking water. Current tariffs are insufficient to finance investments in infrastructure and additional treatment, needed for pollutants like pharmaceutical residues and PFAS.
“If you look at the Cost Recovery Principle you need to be clear about what is included in the necessary investments.”
Professor of European and domestic water law Marleen van Rijswick remembers that the European Commission started a case against Germany in 2014 over the Cost Recovery Principle. “Germany limited the Cost Recovery Principle to the drinking water supply and wastewater treatment. Investments to protect sources and infrastructure and environmental costs were not included. At that time the Court of Justice ruled that the way Germany implemented the Cost Recovery Principle was acceptable, under the assumption that this choice of Germany would lead to achieving the goals of the WFD.” “If you look at the Cost Recovery Principle you need to be clear about what is included in investments. Are we talking about infrastructure, nature-based solutions, energy neutrality and maintenance?”, questions Executive Director Milo Fiasconaro from Acqua Publica Europea (APE), a European organisation of public water companies.
“All Member States should have received an infringement letter from the European Commission because they are not complying with the Cost Recovery Principle, says EurEau President Pär Dalhielm, whose organisation represents national drinking water and wastewater associations in Europe. “In our latest report, we found drinking water prices had increased by only 5 %. That is not even enough to keep up with inflation and falls far short of the investment needs in the sector. If this trend continues, we foresee increasing disruptions to the water supply, which in turn will affect productivity across industries, small businesses, and households.”
“All Member States should have received an infringement letter from the European Commission because they are not complying with the Cost Recovery Principle.”
One of the reasons the drinking water sector is facing this enormous investment gap is that the Polluter Pays Principle is not well implemented, according to a 2021 report by the European Court of Auditors. ‘The Polluter-Pays Principle is not applied consistently across EU environmental policies and actions. EU households usually pay for most of the cost of water supply and sanitation services, even though they consume only 10 % of water. Agriculture, the sector exerting the greatest pressures on renewable freshwater resources, contributes the least’, the report states.
Affordability of drinking water
“Enforcing the Polluter Pays Principle is an important part of keeping water services affordable,” says Pär Dalhielm. “Water services need sustainable financing to maintain and renew critical infrastructure and to meet growing demands. Investing early is essential to maintain safe and reliable services and avoid higher costs in the future. Water remains affordable for European households, with the average household spending around 1% of its income on water services. We need to maintain that affordability while ensuring that water services have the resources they need to invest for the future.”
“Enforcing the Polluter Pays Principle is an important part of keeping water services affordable.”
Drinking water services can be provided by either public, private or public-private water companies. In some cases, ownership is shared between public and private partners. These partners can operate under different models, such as Design-Built-Operate (DBO) or Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DFBO). In the European Union, Member States must comply with drinking water standards set out in the Drinking Water Directive. In the Netherlands, for example, drinking water supply is a public responsibility carried out by water companies operating under public law. In most European countries, water is regarded primarily as a matter of public interest and is therefore largely kept in public hands.
Fiasconaro from Acqua Publica Europea does not consider public-private partnerships a viable model, especially if this involves a financialisation of ownership. “Look at what happened in England, where the privatisation model is seriously challenged politically due to its poor performance. Municipal water utilities are too small to invest and provide drinking water for all. We need small water utilities to grow to a scale that enables them to carry out the needed investment at the appropriate geographical level considering the working of water ecosystems. Sometimes it is not easy to get utilities to merge, but there are other solutions. In Wallonia, Belgium, there was some political resistance for further merges, but some water utilities found a way to share the costs of services like IT, laboratory costs and connection works. It is not the best solution, but it works. For good water governance integrated and transnational river basin management is crucial. And there are things that can only be done at national and EU level.”
Investment gap and lack of data
The latest EurEau report, published in 2026, shows that water utilities are highly concerned about ageing water infrastructure. Dalhielm: “The truth is that our water infrastructure is aging and needs investment, especially in order to reduce leakages.” Billions of euros in additional investment is needed to upgrade Europe’s ageing water infrastructure, but neither the European Commission nor EurEau provides a separate EU-wide figure for the drinking water investment gap. The European Commission estimates the investment gap for the wider water sector at €23 billion per year.
The European water sector suffers from a lack of comprehensive and comparable data. This deficiency makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the effectiveness of water policies and progress towards the EU’s environmental goals. The latest European Commission report (2024) on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Floods Directive (FD) underscores a persistent issue in EU water management: the lack of comprehensive and comparable data. The inability to ensure consistent data across Member States, combined with incomplete reporting, creates obstacles to fully assessing the status of Europe’s rivers, lakes and groundwater. Without reliable data, policymakers and environmental agencies face significant challenges in making effective decisions.
“Soon we will launch an EU wide action plan for digitalisation in the water sector to unlock the benefits of new technologies including AI.”
EU-commissioner Roswall states that the European Commission is planning to modernise water management through data-driven innovation. “Soon we will launch an EU wide action plan for digitalisation in the water sector to unlock the benefits of new technologies including AI. Our use of data on water is key to understand the design of the problems and how to solve them in a resource effective way. The European Commission mainly depends on Member States to report data under EU law. But to help make sure that information is reliable, there are common reporting rules, guidance, and checks to look at whether the data are complete and consistent. Member States are responsible for inspections and national monitoring but the European Commission always stands ready to cooperate with national authorities when there are concerns. With the digital action plan, we want data to be better, faster and more innovatively shared across borders and sectors.”
Strengthening enforcement
At the presentation of the Water Resilience Strategy in 2025 Jessika Roswall stated that it would step up efforts to strengthen the enforcement of existing European water legislation. “If permitting, inspections, pollution controls or remedial action are weak or delayed, issues can arise even where the legislation itself is already in place. As a first step, affected citizens can document the problem, contact the relevant water, health and environmental authorities, request access to environmental information, take part in consultations and, where appropriate, bring the matter before the national courts. If they believe EU law is being breached by a Member State, they can then also submit a complaint to the European Commission”, declares Roswall. It must be said that the chance that the European Commission will start an infringement procedure after a complaint submitted through the reporting page of the European Commission is very low. In 2022 the European Commission pursued fewer than 5% of the complaints further by launching investigations, is stated on the website of the European Commission.
This is why Professor of European and domestic water law Marleen van Rijswick always advises citizens and non-governmental organisation to start proceedings before a national court. “They can argue that there is an infringement of EU law requirements. The national court should then let EU law prevail. You should realise that the capacity for enforcement at the EU level is very limited and the European Commission has to choose which enforcement procedures should be prioritised. Access to safe drinking water in all Member States is a governance issue. It is about the proper implementation of existing legislation, but even more importantly, the enforcement of national and EU legislation. This also requires political will and courage from politicians at the regional or local level. Water governance is crucial for the effectiveness of water management. However, Member States all have their own design of water governance. EU law just requires that it should be effective in the sense that each Member State should meet the EU water goals.”
“A national court should let EU law prevail.”
Regarding legal penalties for polluters Van Rijswick states that EU law requires effective enforcement of legislation. “Member States have large policy discretion as to how they achieve this. And again: fragmentation in water governance, a lack of sufficient numbers of qualified civil servants, and a lack of political will to take difficult action in the field of enforcement all play a role. One often sees short term economic benefits for industry and agriculture prevailing over longer-term sustainability and water-related interests. You also need NGOs or citizens that ask for enforcement action and they should even be willing and capable of bringing cases before national courts.”
UN Right to drinking water
The United Nations officially recognised the human right to water and sanitation in 2010. In 2015 the European Parliament voted in favour of requiring EU Member States to ensure that access to water is guaranteed for all. All suppliers should provide safe drinking water and improve sanitation. The recognition of the Right to Water was the result of a public campaign of Right2Water. After gaining 1.9 million signatures the topic was placed on the political agenda.
The UN General Assembly recognized the right of every human being to have access to enough water for personal and domestic uses, meaning between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day. This is not just drinking water in the literal sense. It covers water needed for drinking, food preparation at home, personal hygiene, sanitation, washing clothes and household hygiene. The water must be safe, acceptable and affordable. Water costs should not exceed 3 per cent of household income. Moreover, the water source has to be within 1,000 metres of the home and collection time should not exceed
European water laws
The European Water Framework Directive, the Drinking Water Directive, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and the Nitrates Directive are designed to safeguard water availability and water quality across the EU. But are these directives still sufficient? European Commissioner Jessika Roswall, responsible for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, is facing many challenges and is preparing changes in the Water Framework Directive to facilitate mining. The water sector is concerned that the upcoming changes will reduce water quantity and quality in Europe.
Water News Europe is publishing a crossborder and expert reviewed investigation of an international team. More information about the project and the team can be found here.
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe
