Outcomes of UNECE water conference in Bonn
The fourth Meeting of the Parties to the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) Water Convention concluded today in Bonn. For three days, more than 120 representatives of 35 states and of numerous non-governmental organisations had debated ways to engage in even closer cooperation on the protection of rivers, lakes and groundwater.
Speaking ten years after the Water Convention came into force, Astrid Klug, Parliamentary State Secretary in the German Federal Environment Ministry, summed up the outcomes in positive terms: "We have achieved a great deal. The close cooperation among the 35 parties has contributed to the improvement, sometimes substantial, of water quality in transboundary rivers in Europe. Yet much remains to be done. At the meeting in Bonn, we put the process on the right track: Even closer cooperation on water pollution control, joint provisions for flood protection, and an ambitious programme of work for the coming years."
On the Rhine, the Maas, the Elbe, the Oder and the Danube, Germany has already been cooperating for many years with all the states in the catchment areas of these rivers within the context of international commissions. In these river basins, implementing the EC Water Framework Directive takes centre stage. The UNECE Water Convention helps the states of eastern and south-eastern Europe and of the Caucasus region to attain the level of water protection applicable in the EU.