12th Joint Steering Committee Meeting of the China-Europe Water Platform
Virtual Meeting, 20th of May 2020
It took place on the 20th of May of 2020, the 12th Joint Steering Committee Meeting of the CEWP. This meeting of the main body of the Platform was foreseen to occur in China, in march 2020, but due the impact of the COVID-19 it has to postponed and adapted. This 12th session was organised using digital means, to allow that 60 participants, using 40 simultaneous connections, could discuss a complete agenda of urgent issues, in terms of evaluation of the state of the art of the different on-going activities.
The meeting was chaired by the Portuguese Ministry of Environment and Climate Action, currently assuming the European Secretariat of the Platform and the Ministry of Water Resources of China.
All participants and the Chairmanship were easily adapted to the digital tools used, and the discussion run smoothly, achieving the main propose of having a free and transparent exchange of experiences on the different ways to face the adverse effects of the recent Covid19 pandemic and maintaining the performance of the planned common activities.
After a brief exchange of experiences between Europe and China specifically about the impacts of COVID 19 on the water sector there was a series of presentations by the Chinese and the European teams in charge of each of the 5 Focus Areas of the Platform on their current and planned activities.
The European Secretariat took also this opportunity to present to the Chinese counterparts a document with a proposal for the CEWP Policy Dialogue Process, for further consolidation.
There was also the occasion for a brief discussion on the presentations done by European and Chinese colleagues on possible future instruments for financial support of the Platform future activities.
The Chinese Secretariat had also the opportunity to present their proposal for the organization of the 2020 High Level Dialogue Conference of the CEWP. It was agreed that this meeting should take place in the 2nd half of 2020 in Zhengzhou. However, due to the current crisis, it is still very difficult to have a clear idea of the evolution of the situation and if will be possibly to physically meet in China by the end of the year. Therefore, it was agreed that all the efforts must be done to confirm if there are conditions to organize the meeting and the Secretariats must continuously evaluate the evolution of the conditions and design later a final propose with the best option between confirming this possibility or postponing the Meeting for the first half of next year.
At the end, it was also agreed that Secretariats must also evaluate the need of organising a new JSC Virtual Meeting till the end of the year, especially if the Ministerial Meeting will be postponed.
