The European Parliament’s ENVI committee adopted its report on water resilience on 8 April. The wide-ranging text, intended to feed into the Commission’s Water Resilience Strategy planned for 4 June, rightly recognises that water resilience needs to become part of how every economic sector operates, including through water efficiency targets and pollution control at the source.

We strongly welcome calls for dedicating EU funding for water infrastructure investments in the next EU budget (MFF), but regret that MEPs opted to dilute the Report’s language on PFAS instead of demanding a comprehensive ban. Indeed, this choice comes in direct contradiction with other goals set out in the ENVI report, in particular the call for “PFAS Total” limits in surface water and groundwater as well as boosting water reuse and biosolids recycling. None of these can realistically be achieved without stopping PFAS emissions at the source through the universal ban under consideration by ECHA.

The final version of the Parliament report is scheduled to be voted on during the 5-8 May plenary session.