The problem of water scarcity and the ways to deal with it in our country were at the center of the briefing given by the competent deputy ministers to the members of the Water Resources Subcommittee.

“The phenomenon of water scarcity is not only a European but also a global problem and it is no coincidence that 2024 has been characterized as a “dry year”, as said the president of the Commission, Dionysia Avgerinopoulou, noting that “this year we had the lowest rainfall with the available water resources in Attica to be enough for just another 4 years, for this the government is moving forward with a specific plan with indirect and direct measures.

The Deputy Minister of the Interior, Vassilis Spanakis, emphasized that the ministry has developed specific actions to deal with the water shortage problem, while 527 irrigation projects, amounting to 1.5 billion euros, are underway.

He spoke about a permanent, targeted and methodical treatment of the water shortage in the Greek territory, noting that “in the context of the call for the Tritsi program, 254 applications with a total budget of 1.7 billion euros were submitted and 139 projects with a total integration budget of approximately 597.2 million euros have been included” .

As he said, “out of all the projects, 310 projects with a budget of 982 million euros have been auctioned, while we have 262 contracts for the execution of projects totaling 640 million euros” and added that “the Ministry of the Interior monitors the degree of implementation of the projects using specific quantitative indicators result”.

“In order to understand what these indicators mean, I will underline that the approximately 58 million cubic meters of drinking water saved per year from the reduction of leaks correspond to the annual water demand of a city of 600,000 inhabitants,” Mr. Spanakis pointed out.

The Deputy Minister of the Interior described the government’s main priority as “water management, the water potential of the country”, pointing out that “we must not forget that 85% of the country’s water is intended for irrigation and just the rest serves water supply needs”.

“Until today, the Ministry of the Interior has financed and continues to finance from the resources of the Public Investment Program a large volume of projects concerning local communities, all the municipalities of the country to improve the quality of life in every corner of our country.

Specifically, from the Public Investments budget for the period 2019 until today, projects with a total budget of 12,737,000 euros have been financed. Many projects implemented by municipalities, public municipal water and sewerage companies and water associations are financed by the Public Investment Programme.

Many important and targeted projects are in progress, the need for which has arisen through the local communities”, underlined Mr. Spanakis and added:

“The ministry is moving forward with targeted interventions, financing municipalities to implement projects such as internal water supply network design projects, projects to replace outdated pipelines with modern pipelines, construction of water reservoirs and others.

The possibility that we will have a water shortage problem in the next four years may be small, however, as the Prime Minister himself said, because hope is not a strategy, a decision has been made together with EYDAP, to proceed with a new emblematic project that aims to deal with this the phenomenon before us.

Water is a vital commodity. Access to it is essential, both for the preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity and for economic development and social well-being.

More than one and a half billion euros have been spent on 527 targeted projects, by the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, since the first day he assumed the helm of the country, on the issue of water scarcity.”

“We will be asked to discuss the issue of water shortage many times as it is a big challenge. The climate crisis has already started to show its harsh face and in terms of its footprint on the water it is immediate and intense”, pointed out, for his part, the Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Food, Dionysis Stamenitis.

As he said, “ensuring irrigation and flood protection are two elements integral to the sustainability and resilience of our crops”.

“For this purpose, we are using all the financial tools in order to be able to create the infrastructure that will ensure proper management of water resources and ensure that our crops will have the water they need.

New infrastructure projects worth 350 million euros are underway to save water.

In 2024, the invitation for mature projects is expected to be issued where the regions of the country can submit a proposal”, Mr. Stamenitis pointed out.

He characterized it as “important that the ministry is implementing the largest technical works program that has been designed in the last 50 years”.

“Started in 2019, it is an integrated rural development infrastructure program and mitigation of the effects of the climate crisis in Greece.

It concerns large-scale irrigation projects and dams, which will be implemented in the countryside through public-private partnerships and are a key tool for the planning and implementation of an integrated program.

The financing of these projects, of which there are approximately 18, and six of which have started, are financed by the Recovery and Resilience Fund, underlined Mr. Stamenitis.

The General Secretary of Natural Environment and Water of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, Petros Varelidis, stated that “tomorrow at 12 noon there will be a press conference by the leadership of the ministry in which all the interventions to deal with the water shortage that will have immediate or medium-term time horizon and will concern either projects to be financed by the Public Investment Program or institutional interventions”.

At the same time, Mr. Varelidis emphasized the need to complete all the unfinished projects, “so that the money that is being spent can take place”, as he characteristically said, while he pointed out that for Thessaly “there is a special drainage plan and we are in a good place” and added that all projects will be under the supervision of the Water Management Organization of Thessaly”.

For his part, the Professor of the Department of Agriculture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Pantazis Georgiou, focused on the proper management of irrigation water, pointing out that “the best practices of irrigation water management will significantly contribute to addressing the problems of water scarcity, production efficiency and of climate change”.

Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Organization of Water Improvements of Piniou-Alphei prefecture of Ilia, emphasized the construction of operational water improvement projects for water storage and transport, pointing out that “40% are the losses from the water supply and only 60% are utilized”.

Professor Michael Skoullos, President of the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean and President of the Mediterranean Information Office for the Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development, pointed out the “urgent need for broad persuasive experiential education and public information, full utilization of new technologies, new approaches to water management, a renewed institutional framework and solutions based on the ecosystems we want to have.”

ND Member of Parliament, Christos Boukoros, pointed out from his side that hundreds of millions were spent on projects, but from then on, no control was done by any competent body for their functionality and effectiveness, as was the case with Lake Karla, for which another 30 million euros were given for additional projects and the results were to fill the area with dead fish.

“We cannot spend huge resources and have no control over the effectiveness of the projects afterwards. In the region of Magnesia, enormous damage was done and it is due to the enormous irreparable administrative inadequacy of certain services,” he said.

ND MP, Markos Kafouros, noted that “there is a need to have a national island policy that will set limits and rules for the sustainable development of our islands”.

For their part, strong criticism of the government, accusing it of an ineffective policy and without a national integrated plan with a waste of critical resources in the management of the water shortage problem, was exercised by both the SYRIZA MP, Alexandros Meikopoulos and the PASOK MP, Katerina Spyridakis, as well as the MPs, KKE Semina Digeni and Konstantinos Metaxas.