Water Security Now: EU Launches First-Ever Water Resilience Strategy

On June 4, 2025, the European Commission accepted the European Union’s first-ever water resilience strategy, a promising stride in environmental governance. Ongoing water stress continues to accelerate due to climate change as the EU’s developed strategy concentrates on restoring the water cycle, boosting economic competitiveness, and ensuring clean, safe water for all. Success will require not just ambition, but real-world delivery, joint action, and optimistic vision.  

Why This Matters 

• If the EU reaches its non-binding 10% water efficiency target for member states by 2030, it will reduce pressure on overexploited water bodies.  

• With Europe’s digital water solutions market expected to double within the next 10 years, alignment of governments and industry on water-efficient technologies could lead to significant growth in digital water infrastructure.  

• Companies struggling to regulate and reduce their water footprints may face perception-based and regulatory risks as water disclosures become uniform. 

Building Water Resilience 

The European Water Resilience Strategy is a groundbreaking framework to address water security by integrating digital technologies, regulatory enforcement, and climate adaptation into an integrated strategy. The new strategy reinforces existing legislation such as the Water Framework Directive, Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, and Nature Restoration Regulation, while actively outlining actions for the future. Among the EU’s strategy, three main goals emerge:  

1. Restoring and protecting the water cycle through wetland rehabilitation and urban nature-based solutions like sponge cities. 

2. Boosting competitiveness by improving water efficiency, specifically in industry and data centers, with advanced technologies like dry cooling and closed-loop systems.  

3. Ensuring equitable access to clean water through wastewater infrastructure.  

“By 2030, at least 25,000km of rivers in the EU will have to be restored into free-flowing rivers.” However, only 39.5% of surface waters currently meet ecological health standards, and PFAS pollutions remains unsolved. The strategy proposes public-private R&D partnerships rather than binding regulation to address these threats. 

Challenges remain—The EU currently faces a $23 billion/year water investment gap, which requires increased absorption of EU funds and leveraging private capital.  

Action Items 

• Prioritize financing for water smart infrastructure, particularly in the agriculture and energy industries 

• Align portfolios with water resilience metrics and track alignment with EU water efficiency benchmarks 

• Monitor the policy implementation 

• Advocate for tighter protections of pollution and biodiversity