Adopted in October 2000, and published in December of the same year, the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60 EC) is a very ambitious piece of legislation indeed: not only is it the first time that the European Union takes the improvement of the aquatic environment as a direct goal, but, beyond this, the real goal is a sustainable development in the field of water. In this paper, we would like to give a more precise definition of the very notion of a sustainable water policy, then apply it to the particular case of water services and hydraulic infrastructures. In a second part of the paper, we'll try to show how the WFD pushes European member States, and in particular the Mediterranean ones, toward demand side management, which might be called the "third age" of water industry.
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