Water - the Blue Gold for our future: Europe's leaders unite to fight water scarcity and depletion

The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia welcomes the water stewardship and accompanying water awareness programme (Aquawareness) initiated by the European Water Partnership (EWP). These programmes promote principles of advanced sustainable water management, following the Commission’s Communication on water scarcity and droughts.
 
Engaging global actors in strategic partnerships, water stewardship aims to become the most widely adopted sustainable water instrument crossing public, private and sectoral barriers. It will establish a set of common values shared by stakeholders including consumers, industry, agriculture, financiers, cities and government, to modernize and achieve profound changes in behaviour and practices.
 
Fully supporting this action, the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia is participating in the high level debate organised by the European Water Partnership in cooperation with the European Parliament in February 2008 and beyond. The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia encourages all stakeholders particularly the private sector to actively engage in the programme.
 
The principles of water stewardship recognize that the challenges of sustainability require voluntary schemes at a global level, in addition to existing legal frameworks.
 
The European Parliament represented by the rapporteur Dr. Richard Seeber wishes to react to the communication of the European Commission with a broad based initiative report which looks at the key strategic challenges. For this purpose the European Parliament started a cooperation with the European Water Partnership and organizes a first high level debate which will discuss the direction of the initiative report. This high level debate will take place on Wednesday, 13th February 2008 starting at 5pm in the European Parliament, rue Wiertz 60, B-1047 Brussels, Belgium.
 
The Global Nature Fund has been invited by the European Water Partnership to participate in the preparation and implementation of the water awareness programme (Aguawareness) and Water Stewardship Programmes. GNF – leader of the international Living Lakes network – is pleased to contribute its expertise in freshwater protection and ecosystem conservation to these programmes.