The Committee of the Regions adopted an opinion in which calls for a multi-level, cross-border approach to the management of river basins in order to ensure the sustainable use of water. The Committee also proposed extending the Covenant of Mayors to include sustainable water use.

The opinion of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) underlined the need to fight climate change and an increasing risk of both droughts and floods. Several floods took place recently at the Est of Europe with serious consequences. In order to help prevent further floods, or droughts, in the future, the CoR wants to see the water basin management approach extended by bringing together authorities from every level of government across national borders.

The Committee's opinion proposes setting targets for 2020 similar to those on energy consumption in order to achieve the main objective. The targets would be a 20% increase in water-saving in all sectors; a 20% increase in the number of water courses being renaturalised to reduce flood risk and a 20% increase in the volume of water re-used and/or recycled in farming and industry. In addition, the opinion adoption also calls for the Covenant of Mayors, which has already seen more than 2500 local and regional authorities pledge to go beyond the 2020 energy targets, to expand its focus in order to include the issue of water as well.

The CoR also believes that new EU legal provisions that request each Member State to set out precise efficiency targets at river-basin level for every water-dependent sector (domestic, industrial, agricultural, fish farming, tourism, hydroelectric power, etc.) would be needed. The opinion also proposes merging EU targets for energy and water efficiency in buildings, and for efficiency targets to be adapted to the needs of each local area.

The European Commission will propose a blueprint for protecting Europe's water during 2012 an the Committee's expects to be taken on board its opinion.