On the afternoon of February 2, the 11th Annual High-Level Dialogue Conference of the China-Europe Water Platform was convened at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. Mr. Li Guoying, Minister of Water Resources of China, Ms. Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Mr. Tomas Taraba, Deputy Prime-Minister and Minister of Environment of Slovak Republic, Ms. Inês Domingos, the Secretary of State for European Affairs of Portugal and Ms. Anja Bagaric, State Secretary, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition of Croatia attended the Conference and delivered speeches.
Li Guoying pointed out that under the impact of climate change, comprehensively enhancing water resilience and fully safeguarding water security are urgent challenges faced by all nations. China, with its exceptionally arduous development tasks and complex fundamental water conditions, faces particularly severe challenges to its water security. President Xi Jinping pioneered the water governance principles of “prioritizing water conservation, balancing spatial distribution, taking systematic approaches and promoting government-market synergy”, outlining a series of strategic measures for water management that have driven profound, comprehensive, and historic transformations in China’s water governance. China’s Ministry of Water Resources has been systematically advancing high-quality development in the water sector, comprehensively enhancing the national water security capabilities and continuously strengthening resilience to water challenges. These efforts have effectively safeguarded flood control security, water supply security, food security, and ecological security.
Li Guoying emphasized that the next five years are a critical period for laying a solid foundation and exerting all efforts in the fundamental realization of Chinese modernization. The Ministry of Water Resources will steadfastly implement President Xi Jinping’s water governance principles, focusing on advancing high-quality development in the water sector and safeguarding national water security. With reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force and meeting the people’s growing water needs as the ultimate goal, the Ministry of Water Resources will systematically advance and comprehensively enhance capabilities in flood and drought disaster prevention, water conservation and intensive utilization, optimized water resource allocation, and ecological protection and governance of rivers and lakes. This will drive major breakthroughs in strategic water security tasks vital to the overall advancement of Chinese modernization, thereby strengthening the foundation and resilience of development. He expressed that China-Europe Water Cooperation is a vital area within broader China-EU green cooperation and climate change response. The collaboration has a solid foundation and has produced good results. He suggested further strengthening policy dialogue, fostering scientific and technological innovation, and upholding openness and inclusiveness to deepen China-EU Water Cooperation with higher quality, and through more concrete measures.
High-level representatives from the EU and European countries attending the meeting acknowledged the significant achievements and great potential of China-Europe Water Cooperation. They expressed their commitment to further strengthening policy alignment, experience sharing, and technical cooperation with China to effectively address the impacts of climate change, jointly enhance water governance capabilities, and make new and greater contributions to accelerating the realization of the water-related goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In-depth exchanges were conducted at this Conference on such topics as river basin governance and management under climate change, innovative diversified financing mechanisms, water resilience and flood management, river and lake management and ecological restoration, and the development of water-saving industries and technologies .
The China-Europe Water Platform is an important cooperation mechanism jointly established by the Ministry of Water Resources of China and water administrative authorities of European countries. It aims to comprehensively promote policy dialogue, joint research, and business cooperation in the water sector between China and Europe.