Roundtable Discussion #2

Invitation to Roundtable Discussion

Water recycling as a cornerstone of resilient water supply in humid regions? – Practical lessons learnt in the WaterMan project & conclusions for future policies in the EU

Water resilience is a priority of the European Commission as President von der Leyen announced in the 2024-2029 Political Guidelines. Being an issue of local communities in south Europe for a long time increasing climate-related pressures and growing water scarcity make it more and more challenging also for municipalities and local water companies in the northern and humid parts of the EU to satisfy the local water demand everywhere and at all times.

An effective means to counteract these problems can be water recycling, in particular if the reuse of treated wastewater is combined with the retention and harvesting of rainwater as well as micro-loops to recirculate water of different qualities within households and industrial facilities. Since 2023, the EU Regulation 2020/741 on “Minimum Requirements for Water Reuse” provides a first, EU-wide legislative framework that helps municipalities and local water companies to take action in this field. With the Water Resilience Strategy adopted in June 2025, the European Commission has launched another policy instrument that identifies water efficiency as a key factor for strengthening water resilience of communities across Europe.

From Jan 2023, the partners of the Interreg Baltic Sea Region project WaterMan have been working on bringing different, exemplary water recycling solutions into everyday use within the present regulatory and policy framework (https://www.eurobalt.org/waterrecyclingtoolbox/). These practical experiences were processed into an “Input Paper to the upcoming evaluation of the EU Water Reuse Regulation in 2028” addressing specific requirements for effectively fostering water recycling and resilient local water supply in humid regions.

With reference to the Input Paper, the Roundtable Discussion intends to bring practitioners and policy makers into dialogue around the following questions: How can municipalities and local water companies in humid regions be encouraged and supported to put water recycling into broader practice? Can a unified regulatory & policy framework that covers a wider range of sources (e.g. rainwater, municipal wastewater) and utilisations of recycled water (e.g. urban irrigation, municipal services, industrial processes) contribute to this? How can the need for transparent standards & streamlined administrative procedures for water recycling in humid regions be met in the best way following the principle of subsidiarity across the different levels of government, from local to EU?

Date: Thursday, 6 November 2025
Time: 9:30 - 11:15, followed by a networking coffee
Place: Thon Hotel EU, Rue de la Loi 75, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
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Metro station: Maelbeek

Registration

Click here to see full invitation and agenda

Please register by filling in this form before 30 October 2025.