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Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology

Wetsus

Wetsus is the coordinator of an industry driven research programme in which over 108 European and global companies actively participate.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Revision of the Rescue and Restructuring Guidelines

4 Nov 2025

The current EU definition of Undertaking in difficulty reflects a post-crisis perspective that is no longer compatible with Europes innovation ambitions. Without urgent reform, Europe risks excluding precisely the companies that will deliver its next generation of technological breakthroughs. European SMEs therefore urge the European Commission to adopt the revised UID definition without delay, or at a minimum, to issue a temporary clarification enabling access to funding for research- and innovation-driven Undertakinges. Waiting until 2027 is not an option. Europes competitiveness and technological sovereignty depend on immediate action.
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Response to Towards a Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy

5 Jun 2025

The IWA Resource Recovery From Water conference indicated Europe is ready to capitalize on the bioeconomy from water market. Within the EU annually 8,7 Million tons dry matter of municipal waste water sludge is produced, which shows the potential in volume and impact. We do wish to emphasize a few key issues. A circular economy aims to minimize waste and pollution, keeping resources in use for as long as possible. This is achieved through strategies like recycling, upcycling, and minimizing the need to burn materials. A circular economy aims to minimize waste and pollution, keeping resources in use for as long as possible. This is achieved through strategies like recycling, upcycling, and minimizing the need to burn materials. And precisely there lies one of the issues. Since the Russian war in Ukraine the gas prices in Europe have gone up considerably. WWTPs can now become resource or energy factory. Biowaste can be transformed into valuable biodegradable bioplastics, which can replace fossil fuel derived plastics, without competing with food sources. Fully natural and with continued daily production. Unfortunately, transforming WWTPs into or resource upcycling facilities, is seen as a risk with higher CAPEX, while chosing biogas locks in an undesirable choice from which divesting will be hard to do. We see the importance of stimulation of biogas for the coming years but this should not create an unequal playing field for production of biobased materials from wastewater for which we see an important developing potential. These initiatives should have similar financial incentives as the existing biogas initiatives to be able to scale up and reduce risks. We would also like to stress that a competitive bioeconomy will require a sustainable use of nutrients to grow the required biomass. Phosphate rock is already being considered a critical raw material and recovery of phosphorus from the water cycle is addressed in the revised UWWTD. However, also bound nitrogen is a crucial nutrient that is now produced via energy intensive processes and a significant amount of bound nitrogen in fertiliser is sourced from Russia (33%). Nitrogen obtained from animal manure can be much better utilized when digested and refined on decentralized scale. In addition, the gained biogas contributes to a required stable baseload in a renewable energy system. Also significant amounts of nitrogen can be recovered from sewage and first full scale installations are now being realised but need support for wider implementation. In addition, to maintain the import of artificial fertilizer when not maximizing nutrient recovery from animal manure and sewage sustains the EU dependence of non-renewable resources and hinders transition to a balanced renewable energy system. It also limits Europes ecological ambitions on land and in water from source to sea. While the UWWTD rightly promotes phosphorus recovery, but its implementation risks creating an unintended lock-in to incineration. High phosphorus recovery targets may only be technically achievable through ash-based recovery routes, which require sewage sludge to be incinerated. This undermines emerging strategies focused on local carbon recovery and energy production (e.g. digestion or carbon valorization technologies). If incineration becomes the default, innovation in circular carbon solutions on WWTPs will be stifled. Moreover, continued reliance on combustion contradicts the directives broader goals on climate neutrality and resource efficiency. We urge policymakers to ensure flexibility in phosphorus recovery requirements, allowing for multiple technological routes, and to integrate carbon recovery goals explicitly into implementation guidance. Concluding, we wish to ask the European Commission to develop a strategy in partnership with the European water sector and its technological suppliers, to maximise the value in water to achieve a true Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy.
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Meeting with Ingeborg Ter Laak (Member of the European Parliament)

16 Apr 2025 · Waterweerbaarheid

Meeting with Mohammed Chahim (Member of the European Parliament)

28 Nov 2023 · KIC Water, Marine & Maritime

Meeting with Keith Sequeira (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas), Robert Schröder (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas)

16 Feb 2017 · Presentation of Wetsus