Source: EU Observer.com
By Andrew Rettman
14 March 2007 - Water management is climbing the agenda in EU foreign policy and internal security plans, making up a significant part of Europe's new thrust to engage with Central Asia states, soothe tensions in the Middle East and cement conflict resolution in the Western Balkans.
The EU's recent blueprint for a new Central Asia policy lists "environment" and "water management" as a top priority in the effort to bring "security and good governance" to the region creating "a ring of well-governed countries to the east of the European Union."
EU diplomats working on the dossier tend to see Central Asia in hard-nosed terms of new gas pipelines, unstable dictatorships, counter-terrorism and Russian influence but threats to clean drinking water or farm irrigation are also understood as potential risk factors for EU goals.
"The imbalance between the interest of upstream countries' electricity generating industry and downstream irrigation as well as uneven pattern of water consumption are aggravating [political] tensions," the EU paper states, citing Afghanistan's claim to the Amu Darya river's downstream water as one concrete political example.
With up to 40 percent of people in some areas having "no access" to clean water, high rates of dirty water-related infant mortality and major resources such as Lake Balkhash and the Irtysh river under threat from pollution and excessive draw-off, water also "increases social tensions" in vulnerable states.
A major conference between Kazakhstan and China in early March ended in stalemate when China refused to accept Kazakh food aid in return for letting river water flow unimpeded into Lake Balkhash, The New York Times reports. "The Chinese were cautious and wary, but they also were listening," a Kazakh-based EU diplomat said, amid Kazkah plans to build a nuclear power plant on the lake in future.
The EU plans to spend a large chunk of its €719 million Central Asia budget on funding new water infrastructure and environmental education in 2007 to 2013, as well as pushing international banks to help foot the bill. But the importance of water management for conflict resolution is also apparent closer to home.
Bad smell in Gaza
When Israeli jets fired six missiles at the Gaza strip's only electricity plant on the morning of 28 June 2006, loss of water pump capacity left 1.4 million Palestinians able to draw water for just three hours a day and all-but-disabled the sewage system in the world's most densely populated piece of land, aggravating political tension.
"We understand [Israeli] outrage but diplomacy offers the best chance to address the immediate priority [of a kidnapped Israeli soldier] not the destruction of essential infrastructure," external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said one week later, with EU aid immediately diverted to help restart pumps.
The commission "attaches great importance to the issue of water in the occupied Palestinian territories in the framework of the resolution of the conflict" one EU official told EUobserver, with Brussels helping support water-access talks between Israel, Jordan and Palestine through the so-called EXACT regional forum since 1995. [...]
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