Employment and Economic Growth Through Investment in Water
The European Commission and EU Member States must invest heavily in updating and developing Europe’s water infrastructure if it wants to grow the European economy and create jobs.
Current measures to stimulate economic growth such as the ECB’s quantitative easing programme in the EU are having mixed results.
Water companies urge the Commission and Member States to invest further in the real economy instead, and say infrastructure investment will yield faster and better results for EU citizens.
The call came from European water leaders from EurEau in advance of UN World Water Day (22 March).
Bruno Tisserand, EurEau President, said: “Europe has a very long and proud history of building essential water and sewerage infrastructure and without it, there simply would not have been any industrial, commercial and agricultural growth in the past 150 years.”
“This has made European society more cohesive, more developed and more healthy.”
“We must be brave and think long-term - guaranteeing this human right and ensuring we have enough water for future generations. Extra investment will provide even greater environmental protection. And extra investment will create jobs to boost industry and commerce.”
The theme for this year’s UN World Water Day is water and jobs. Our members employ around 500.000 people in Europe, making a significant contribution to the European economy.
The European water sector invests €48bn annually into its services. The Commission should work with the EIB and the ECB to ear-mark funding to complement this.
Source: EurEau
