Project title : Transboundary water coperation between EU member states and third  countries: governance resilience analysis and hydrolopolitical  model-building

Project number: IZ11Z0_230952

Project duration: 1.7.2025. – 30.6.2029.

Applicant organisations:  University of Geneve Faculty of Law (CH),  Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek (HR), Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture Osijek;  Ludovika University of Public Services (HU)

 Fund: Multilateral academic projects  (MAPS) are funded by Swiss National Science Foundation  (SNSF)  and Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ)

 Summary:

Transboundary water cooperation within the European Union is subject to a well-developed and highly harmonised legal regime dominated by the EU’s Water Framework Directive (WFD), and to a lesser extent, the Floods Directive. Yet, EU member states are also under a “best-effort” obligation to implement the objectives of the WFD vis-à-vis third countries in shared river basins. Consequently, the European Commission and EU member states have, over the past two decades, been consistently pushing to expand the application of the EU’s own water policy priorities and governance mechanisms to catchment areas spanning the EU’s political borders. In addition, the EU has, since the early 2000s, kept water diplomacy among the core priorities of its foreign and development policy. How far these efforts have succeeded, however, remain largely unknown as there has been no systematic study of the co-riparian relations in the EU’s hydrological neighbourhoods.

This research project aims to map out the interactions between EU, national and international water policy and law in four river basins shared by EU and non-EU countries (the Rhône, the Rhine, the Po and the Danube) and to draw systemic conclusions about the fitness and effectiveness of the multilayered governance regimes applied in the EU/non-EU sections of these basins. The empirical part will conclude with an assessment of the effectiveness of existing cooperation. The methods includes literature review, analysis of existing databases and primary information gathered through questionnaires and interviews with  stakeholders an multivariate modelling.

Project leader: Dr. Mara Tignino, University of Geneve

Project team: Prof. Dr. Lidija Tadić (GrAFOS), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tamara Brleković (GrAFOS),  Luka Juretić, mag.ing.aedif., assistant (GrAFOS); Dr. Gábor Baranyai, Ludovika University of Public Services ( Hungary), Prof.  Enikő Anna Tamás, Ludovika University of Public Services (Hungary)