Urban Water Management – Challenges of Implementation

About the workshop

The workshop was held on the 2nd of June 2021 and explored the challenges faced by municipal water companies in implementing the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD). We considered how to revise the UWWTD to help meet the zero-pollution ambition and increase coherence of EU water policy. 

Other topics of discussions explored the challenges relating to stormwater management – and how better coherence between these directives could ease implementation in cities.  

Local voices, large impact

As local actors are the ones who ultimately implement EU-legislation, they are well suited to identify its shortcomings. It is therefore important that these voices are heard and considered when policy is drafted.

To that end, one of our main goals with the workshop was to share such local perspectives, such as the position of Gothenburg City, with the European Commission now that the UWWTD is to be revised – and show how a revised directive could better complement EU water policy.

After the event, Gothenburg European Office wrote this summary report of the key messages from the workshop. This report has been sent directly to the European Commission to provide them with input of implementation challenges faced by local/urban actors to be considered during the revision process of the UWWTD.