Advancing sustainable wastewater management through the “Polluter Pays” principle

Dur­ing the WOD-KAN 2026 exhi­bi­tion in Byd­goszcz, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of water sec­tor asso­ci­a­tions from Ukraine, Poland, Ger­many, Den­mark, Roma­nia, and Moldo­va gath­ered for the sec­ond Euro­pean Water Asso­ci­a­tion sem­i­nar ded­i­cat­ed to the “Pol­luter Pays” prin­ci­ple in waste­water man­age­ment, held with the sup­port of the FELICITY II pro­gramme.

The sem­i­nar focused on how the costs of waste­water treat­ment can be dis­trib­uted more fair­ly among pol­luters, while ensur­ing finan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty for util­i­ties and main­tain­ing high-qual­i­ty ser­vices for com­mu­ni­ties. Par­tic­i­pants exchanged expe­ri­ences on reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, eco­nom­ic instru­ments, cost-recov­ery mech­a­nisms, and tech­ni­cal solu­tions that sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the prin­ci­ple in prac­tice.

This prin­ci­ple is an impor­tant ele­ment of respon­si­ble water resource man­age­ment. It helps make waste­water treat­ment costs more trans­par­ent and cre­ates a foun­da­tion for long-term invest­ment in water infra­struc­ture, stat­ed Brit­ta Ammer­müller, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN).

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion was giv­en to the expe­ri­ence of water util­i­ties, where pol­i­cy deci­sions are test­ed in prac­tice through tar­iffs, dis­charge con­trol sys­tems, con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments, invest­ments in waste­water treat­ment facil­i­ties, and dai­ly inter­ac­tion with com­mu­ni­ties.

For munic­i­pal util­i­ties, it is impor­tant to see how Euro­pean approach­es work in every­day prac­tice. The exchange of expe­ri­ence between util­i­ties, asso­ci­a­tions, and part­ners helps iden­ti­fy solu­tions that can be adapt­ed to spe­cif­ic local con­di­tions, not­ed Thomas Abel from VKU.

For Ukraine, the dis­cus­sion is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant in the con­text of rebuild­ing and mod­ernising water infra­struc­ture, as well as strength­en­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for water sup­ply and waste­water ser­vices. This includes the grad­ual align­ment of nation­al leg­is­la­tion with EU require­ments on urban waste­water treat­ment and drink­ing water qual­i­ty.

The sem­i­nar formed part of an inter­na­tion­al sec­tor plat­form estab­lished to facil­i­tate dia­logue among water sec­tor asso­ci­a­tions from Ukraine, Poland, and Ger­many. It was the sec­ond event in a planned series, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions on tar­iff-set­ting and finan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty held in Novem­ber 2025. Ukrain­ian par­tic­i­pants includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of pub­lic author­i­ties, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Water and Waste­water Util­i­ties of Ukraine “Ukr­vodokanalekologiya”, and water util­i­ty com­pa­nies.

FELICITY II is an inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tive sup­port­ing sus­tain­able urban infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in East­ern Euro­pean and Cen­tral Asia coun­tries, aim­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions. The pro­gramme pro­vides tech­ni­cal and ana­lyt­i­cal assis­tance to munic­i­pal­i­ties to help them design and imple­ment cli­mate-friend­ly invest­ments in water sup­ply, waste­water man­age­ment, and ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings. 

FELICITY II is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in coop­er­a­tion with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank and with the sup­port of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, under the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).