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6.1.        Synergy of policy initiatives at EU level for resilience to water stress

Mainstreaming water management considerations into other environmental and sectoral policies and finding synergies across them are key to enabling sustainable water management and reducing society’s exposure and vulnerability to water stress. The recent WFD fitness check has highlighted that one of the factors contributing to the effectiveness of water directives in progressing towards their objectives were the (binding) cross-references to the WFD’s objectives in other EU policies (EC, 2019f). However, despite the 20 years of existence of the WFD, few integrated governance frameworks have effectively been implemented (EC, 2019f). Until recently, sectoral policies at EU level have even contributed to increasing pressures on water resources, for instance when promoting agricultural development, industrial growth or development of hydropower without sufficient environmental safeguards (Rouillard et al., 2018; Carvalho et al., 2019; Kampa et al., 2020).