Roundtable Discussion #2: Water recycling as a cornerstone of resilient water supply in humid regions?

Invitation to WaterMan & ERB Water Core Group Dialogue Forum

Water Recycling in the Baltic Sea Region – Practical Examples and Way Forward

Water resilience is a strategic priority for the European Commission, as set out by President von der Leyen in the 2024-2029 Political Guidelines. While once seen mainly as a challenge in southern Europe, increasing climate-related pressures and growing water scarcity now also make it harder for municipalities and local water companies in northern, humid parts of the EU to meet local water demand reliably everywhere and at all times.

An effective way to respond to these challenges is water recycling, especially when the reuse of municipal wastewater and micro-loops that recirculate water of different qualities within households and industrial facilities are combined with the retention and recirculation of rainwater. Since 2023, the EU Regulation 2020/741 on “Minimum Requirements for Water Reuse” has been in application and provides the first EU-wide legislative framework to help municipalities and local water companies to take action. With the Water Resilience Strategy adopted in June 2025, the European Commission has added another policy instrument that identifies water efficiency as a key factor for strengthening water resilience across Europe.

The partners of the Interreg Baltic Sea Region project WaterMan have been working to bring practical water recycling solutions into everyday use (https://www.eurobalt.org/waterrecyclingtoolbox/) within the current regulatory and policy framework since January 2023. Based on these experiences, they have prepared inputs to inform the implementation of the EU Water Resilience Strategy and 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 these inputs, the Roundtable Discussion intends to facilitate the dialogue between practitioners and policy makers 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? Could a more unified regulatory & policy framework covering multiple sources (e.g. rainwater, municipal wastewater) and use cases of recycled water (e.g. urban irrigation, municipal services, industrial processes) help scale uptake? How can transparent standards and streamlined administrative procedures for water recycling in humid regions be provided while respecting subsidiarity across the local, national and EU levels?

Click here to see full invitation and agenda

Date:                       Thursday, 6 November 2025
Time:                       09:30 - 11:15 h CET, followed by a networking coffee
Place:                      Thon Hotel EU, Rue de la Loi 75, 1040 Brussels, Belgium, Google maps
Metro station:     Maelbeek

Online participation: Please use the following link to join online > Zoom link

Registration

Please register by filling in this form until 17 November 2025.