EWA announces Wendy Francken as new President

Wendy Francken received the baton of the EWA Presidency for the period 2023-2025 from her predecessor Raymond Erpelding during the annual EWA Council Meeting held in Antwerp after the EWA/VLARIO Spring Conference. Harsha Ratnaweera from the Norwegian Water Association started his mandate as vice president.

Wendy Francken is currently the managing director of VLARIO in Belgium. VLARIO is an independent non-governmental and non-profit organization in Flanders (Belgium). It is the consulting platform and the information and knowledge centre for Flemish sewerage professionals.

Mrs. Francken has been a member of the EWA Management Committee since 2012. She became vice president of the EWA in 2021. She is very much involved in the activities of the association as she has been since 2012 Chairwoman of the European Policy Committee (EPC). The committee follows the work of the European Commission and arranges regular meetings with officials in the Commission, responsible for activities of relevance to water management. The committee gives comments and advice to official European institutions on behalf of its members.

Mrs. Francken received the baton of the EWA Presidency during the Council Meeting held in Antwerp on May 12th after the EWA/VLARIO Spring Conference for the period 2023-2025. The conference took place on May 11th at the Havenhuis auditorium, in Antwerp, Belgium. The conference welcomed more than 70 participants from all over Europe and was organized jointly by the EWA and VLARIO. The topic was Urban Water Management: Challenges, Innovation and EU Requirement versus local needs and possibilities. Speakers from the European Commission, EEAC, European Environmental Agency and many more were present. You can find a summary of the conference soon on the EWA website.

The newly vice president is Harsha Ratnaweera, Professor in Water and Wastewater Technology at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He is a council member and the Norwegian representative at the European Water Association and a Fellow. He is also member of the ETSC group at the European Water Association and director of the Board of the International Water Association.

The EWA welcomes the new president and vice president and looks forward to the collaboration for Clean Water for Europe. We also would like to thank the past president for his accomplishments for the association during the past years.