On 5 June, the Balkan Regional Consultation Meeting took place in Struga, North Macedonia, as part of the ONE WATER II project promoted by CIHEAM Bari in partnership with the One Water Committee.
The meeting brought together water sector experts and government officials from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, who gathered to discuss alignment with EU water policy, governance reforms in the sector, and transboundary cooperation on shared river basins.
The Struga meeting is part of the broader path of regional consultations launched by CIHEAM Bari under the ONE WATER II project, which over the course of 2025 and 2026 has carried out three cycles of meetings with the Balkans, the Mashreq and the Maghreb. The aim is to gather the specific priorities of the different areas of the wider Mediterranean and feed them directly into the thematic agenda of the Euro-Mediterranean Water Forum, ensuring that the voices of the southern shore and of the Balkans are integrated into the programme from the preparatory stage onward.
For the Balkans, the theme of transboundary cooperation carries particular significance: water knows no borders, and the river basins shared among the countries of the region require coordination that goes beyond individual national jurisdictions. The EU accession process also represents a powerful lever for the adoption of common water governance standards, in line with the Water Framework Directive and the Urban Wastewater Treatment Direc
