Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall knows appeasing farmers will have to be part of any future plans to fix the region’s polluted waterways.
BRUSSELS — Europe’s water supply is in bad shape and any plan to fix it must include the resource’s top consumer: farmers, according to the European Union’s new environment commissioner.
“We need to fix the broken [water] cycle,” Jessika Roswall said in an interview with POLITICO, stressing the need to “work hand in hand with the farming industry.”
The former EU affairs minister for Sweden has been tasked with producing a European Water Resilience Strategy, and Roswall acknowledged it will be a big task.
“We see flooding, we see droughts, we see polluted water, and we know that the whole water cycle is broken. So we need to work on it from very many angles,” she said from her office in the Berlaymont.
“And yes, farmers are the biggest users. We know that — and we all depend on that. We all depend on food. I mean, they need clean water the most.”
The European Commission had scheduled a water resilience initiative for last year, before it was shelved amid Europe’s farmer protests and ahead of the EU election.
Farmers have continued to protest since then, starting the new year with demonstrations in France and Poland demanding governments reduce red tape and fight back against the EU trade agreement with Mercosur countries.
The agricultural sector’s intensive use of nutrients and pesticides is damagingthe quality of surface and groundwaters, according to an October report by the European Environment Agency. The sector is also by far the highest net user of water in Europe, accounting for nearly 60 percent of consumptionin 2019.
The EEA has called on countries and sectors with a “heavy impact” on water like agriculture, energy and transport to “accelerate implementation [of environmental policies and initiatives] to deliver more tangible environmental improvements.”
A serious water policy would therefore inevitably impact the agriculture sector, and could once again put the Commission on a collision course with farmers — something Roswall is keen to avoid.
“If we don’t get people and farmers on board [with] … the transition, we will not reach our goals, and I will not have the results I’m looking for,” she said.
Roswall said it was “too early” to confirm whether there would be a priority list of users for water in the strategy, but flagged the agriculture, textiles and pharmaceutical industries as major consumers.
She also said the EU needs to work “more on the polluter-pay principal” — whereby industries responsible for environmental damage are made to pay to cover the costs — while confirming she will “not set any targets” in the strategy.
But it’s not only about punitive measures.
The Commissioner insists that water technology will feature in the EU’s Competitiveness Compass — a blueprint to revitalize Europe’s industrial complex amid fierce competition from United States and Chinese businesses. The presentation of that document, originally planned on Jan. 15, was delayed Wednesday by “at least a week” because of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s bout of severe pneumonia.
There are “really good, innovative innovations in Europe when it comes to reusing water, when it comes to using water more effectively … but the problem for Europe has so far been that we have the innovations, but we don’t manage to scale them up,” Roswall said.
She struck an optimistic tone on the direction water policy is taking — despite the strong headwinds blowing against additional environmental rules.
The new mandate will “not be without conflicts,” she said, but added: “Me, [EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe] Hansen and other commissioners and the farmers have the same objective.”