On Thursday, 23 April, I-Com hosted a policy breakfast entitled “Financing Europe’s Water Resilience” as part of the Cantiere Europa+ project. The event brought together key institutional and sectoral stakeholders to discuss the main policy and financing challenges surrounding Europe’s water resilience. Moshi Berenstein, the EIA president, has actively participated in this meeting.
The discussion was opened by Stefano da Empoli, President of I-Com, who introduced the Institute’s background paper prepared for the occasion and framed the debate.
The event featured a keynote speech by Veronica Manfredi, Director for Zero Pollution, Water Resilience & Green Urban Transition at DG Environment, European Commission. In her remarks, she stressed the scale of the sector’s investment gap and underlined the importance of the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) negotiations as a crucial opportunity to address it.
This was followed by remarks from Matteo Brumati, Environment Attaché at the Permanent Representation of Italy to the EU, who warned that water risks being overshadowed by other pressing priorities, such as defence and industrial policy. He also pointed to the absence of a dedicated financing or guarantee instrument for water resilience, noting instead that support for the sector is currently spread across a range of different investment programmes.
The discussion then moved into a Q&A session, during which participants raised a number of key issues, including the lack of a coherent European framework, the importance of effective implementation, and the link between water resilience and Europe’s strategic autonomy in an era marked by geopolitical tensions and energy insecurity.
Overall, the event highlighted the growing prominence of water resilience in the European policy debate, as well as the need for adequate investment and stronger coordination across levels of governance.
