Erik Orsenna: “There are no 100% public or 100% private plans, as the meeting of the two dimensions is an everyday reality”

Honorary french government advisor, economist, writer and member of the académie française, Erik Orsenna chaired a session at the New Ideas on Water Forum. He explains us his work that aim to reinvent the model of water and to develop proposals.

What were the objectives assigned to the New Ideas on Water Forum?
Erik Orsenna: This was not debate for debate’s sake, but rather finding solutions together to issues such as water scarcity, distribution and price, resource management, sharing of responsibilities, etc. Complex subjects, which generate considerable misunderstanding and contradictory attitudes, and about which it is essential to think again.

At the end of the discussions, “ten new ideas about water” were drawn up. Which of them would you choose in particular?
E. O.: These ten new ideas throw light on key water issues and all of them are therefore interesting. I am personally in favor of the idea, according to which the major water cycle will receive further attention. The need to protect the resource is obvious, but we must find new methods of financing this. Given the financial challenges and the magnitude of the investments, this burden cannot be placed fundamentally on the drinking water user. We must therefore invent a new distribution, including new parties entering into the financing loop, who disrupt or benefit from the water cycle. I also think that the method of pricing water needs to be matched to the restrictions of the local resource, for example by a sliding price scale – permanent or seasonal – based on individual metering. In any case, it is essential to connect economic and environmental efficiency and to encourage all parties to protect this resource to the best of their ability.

Has the forum clarified the debate between the advocates of state control and the delegation of public service?
E. O.: In this field, ideological positions must be abandoned in the face of assessment crite- ria and performance comparison embodying local constraints and efforts at improvement made in the past. There are no 100% public or 100% private plans, as the meeting of the two dimensions is an everyday reality, from the simple delivery of a service to full delegation. Ideological crystallization is particularly obsolete, as the combining of resources, experience and skills is essential in meeting the challenge of protecting our water masses.

 

Find out more:

• New Ideas on Water
• Debates
• Statistics
• Lyonnaise des Eaux official website