Are we in Greece really as wasteful in our water consumption in our homes as European surveys show, with an annual consumption twice that of other Europeans? Is the infrastructure old, “leaky” or is it that some people are stealing water? These questions were answered, among others, by characterizing “Management Competence” as the key word by Georgios Hatzinikolaou, Environmentalist, Director of Environmental Consultants, of “Lever – Development Consultants SA”, a member company of the “Samaras & Associates” Group, during his successful participation in this year’s Green Deal 2025.

This year’s conference with the general theme “Green and digital transformation, infrastructure and sustainable development at a critical juncture: Challenges and opportunities for investments and resilience” was once again successfully organized by the TEE and economix.gr, today, at the “Stavros Niarchos Foundation” Cultural Center. Mr. Hatzinikolaou, in particular, participated in the section “Investments to address Water Scarcity”.

Mr. Hatzinikolaou underlined that “the problems we are facing today or will face in the near future are not only related to climate change, but to a large extent also to water management in Greece.
For about 20 years now, we have had the River Basin Management Plans. According to these Plans, we need 8.8 billion cubic meters of water per year for every use. Is that a lot or a little? Let’s leave irrigation out of the equation. Let’s see how many cubic meters a household needs per year. According to the data from the European Environment Agency, in Greece we need about 100 cubic meters every year, when in the rest of Europe this is close to 45! What is happening? Are we so wasteful in our homes? Or is the infrastructure old, leaky? Or is it that some people are stealing water? Today, the “Samaras & Associates” Group has a considerable number of projects with EYDAP, with DEYA and with many Municipalities in the province and very small Municipalities, we estimate that we only charge for 40-60% of the water that flows through the water supply network. We need to determine if someone is stealing this water or if our pipes are leaky or if so much water is needed for other uses (green, fires, street washing, etc.). If you remove this 40-60% from the 100 cubic meters, we are left with the European average for households. Therefore, in any case and in order not to “throw our little money” into a “bottomless barrel” or otherwise in order not to pay twice for every cubic meter of water that we actually consume, we need to look at our infrastructure. And we need to maintain them and we need to take care of them.”

To the question “If the problem is infrastructure, why can’t the water/drainage authorities solve it? Is it because there aren’t enough funds?” He replied: “One of the paradoxes in this case is that there is money to repair the infrastructure, but there is no way for this money to be available to the Municipalities, without the Administrative Adequacy that RAAEY rightly requires. Not all DEYAs are the same and the Municipalities are very different, from Athens to Agios Efstratios. We, as the “Samaras & Associates” Group, are next to the Municipalities and help them to acquire this adequacy through our know-how and the adaptation of the adequacy requirements to each Water Supply Entity. In conclusion, climate change and whatever else is necessary. First, however, the Water Supply Entities must be ready, their people, because even after a merger, more or less the same people will still be handling the water infrastructure. We need the administrative adequacy of RAAEY. We need financial resources in water infrastructure. And these two must go hand in hand. Otherwise, we will either waste financial resources or go thirsty.”