TRENTO, Italy
Water management in the Alps will be the key concern for Switzerland, the first non-European Union member state to take over the 12-month presidency of the EU’s Alpine region, according to participants at a European Commission-sponsored conference in Italy.
“The EU macro-region, EUSALP, will play a key role in the EU’s shift towards a sustainable energy policy, and water is the key issue in this region -- how we manage and sustain it,” Mirko Bisesti, councilor for education at the University and Culture of the Autonomous Province of Trento, told Anadolu Agency at the event in the Italian Alpine town of Trento. The Swiss presidency starts on Jan. 1, 2023.
The waters of the Alps have become contested as melting glaciers affect the lives of tens of millions of people.
Low summer rainfall and unusually high temperatures in northern Italy dried up the Po River.
The Alps are a massive reservoir of water which flows to 170 million people along some of Europe's biggest rivers, including the Danube, Po, and Rhine.
The Trento conference showcased several EU projects that are aimed at improving management of the Alpine ecosystem.
“The aims of the Italian presidency have been well-developed,” said Maurizio Fugatti, the president of the region of Trento in Italy, noting that initiatives had been set in motion in biodiversity, circular economy, sustainability, supporting growth in rural areas, and digitalization.
The Autonomous Provinces of Bolzano/Bozen and Trento took over the Presidency of the European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP) on behalf of Italy for 2022 in January.
EUSALP wants to establish itself as an instrument of cross-border cooperation in the Alps and become the first carbon neutral macro-region in Europe, in line with the EU climate measures and the European Green Deal.
Enrico Di Muzio, a meteorologist at the EU-funded TINIA Interreg project which ends after 12 months at the end of this year, spoke of the need to collaborate across borders in weather forecasting.
“This is vital. It adds value to farmers, local authorities, and businesses, as well as people and families planning their vacations. There is no national weather forecaster in Italy, and often there is competition to improve one region’s conditions at the expense of others,” he said.
