EU Celebrates Water Dialogue By Signing Declaration That Water Has Been Consulted
A formal Leuven ceremony marked progress in discussing water, prompting officials to consider whether every raindrop now requires a stakeholder meeting.
LEUVEN, Belgium, A European Commissioner spoke in Leuven on Monday with Belgian regional representatives present, marking the results of the Structured Dialogue on Water and signing a Joint Declaration. Water, officials confirmed, had survived several rounds of consultation without once being handed a form.
The gathering recognised work completed through the dialogue. This was considered substantial, chiefly because water refuses to stay put, cannot be booked for a 10:30 meeting and has little regard for the limits of administrative competence.
The declaration was signed in the hushed manner usually kept for treaties, class photographs and the opening of a garden centre with an alarming amount of public money behind it. Several authorities had agreed that water mattered. Nobody present seemed certain which paragraph covered puddles.
“We have reached agreement that water should continue to exist in principle.”
Things nearly became clear at one stage. Marla Quince, fictional spokesperson for the Subcommittee on Subcommittees, said participants had reached a common understanding of water, while taking care not to imply that this understanding should be acted on before it had been discussed again.
That caution carried over. The invented Office for Aquatic Alignment called the Structured Dialogue a model for modern government, where an issue can be examined from every side until it is too round to go anywhere. Its deputy coordinator, Soren Veldt, said water had finally been recognised as a resource and, subject to further consultation, possibly a participant.
Belgian regional representatives also attended, proving that water policy can bring together people who disagree on borders and budgets, then discover a separate disagreement over how to pronounce “infrastructure”. A nearby man described the atmosphere as electric. The nearest electrical connection was in another building and had not been consulted.
By the end, the Joint Declaration had been signed and the address delivered. Water remained largely where it usually is, under the influence of gravity, weather and the occasional municipal pipe. Organisers left knowing the dialogue had produced outcomes. The outcomes promptly began another dialogue about the best way to describe themselves.