Călin Georgescu was unfairly mocked when he said that Romania could become a major “player” on the international water market, sovereignist media claims.
NEWS: The news about the water crisis reminds us of Călin Georgescu's 2024 election campaign. The former presidential candidate spoke about Romania's capacity to turn the country into a strategic player on the global water market. Georgescu was mocked when he said that Romania could obtain significant income from selling water. Our country owns 60-65% of Europe's water sources.
NARRATIVE: Romania has the potential to become Europe's main water supplier, as Călin Georgescu “prophesied”.
PURPOSE: To promote sovereignist rhetoric, to stir and amplify social unrest, to validate previously promoted conspiracy theories.
Romania does NOT own 60% of Europe's fresh water sources
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The 60% (sometimes 65%) quota invoked by sovereignist propaganda when it claims that Romania is the main holder of water sources in Europe is completely false. The statement is based on a consumer behavior study, conducted in 2011 by a bottled mineral water company, which estimated that Romania owns 60% of the continental reserve of mineral waters, not of fresh water in general. Even so, in fact, more recent studies state that Romania merely owns approximately 40% of Europe's natural mineral water reserve, but much of it actually remains unexploited. Thus, of the over 2,000 mineral water sources recognized only in the European Union (in January 2025), Romania is home to merely 78. Slightly contradicting EU data, the National Regulatory Authority for Mining, Petroleum and Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide, the institution tasked with identifying and exploiting mineral waters, states that, in May 2025, there were only 89 mineral water sources in Romania. Under these circumstances, it is obvious that there is a very small number of mineral water resources on the territory of Romania, compared to those on the territory of the European Union. Furthermore, the list does not include the rest of the countries outside the EU. Thus, at European level, as the initial story stated, the percentage of mineral waters owned by Romania is much smaller.
As for “fresh water”, this includes surface waters (rivers, natural and artificial lakes), groundwater (groundwater aquifers, deep water bodies, springs), useful precipitation (which contributes to the restoration of resources), and snow and glaciers (but irrelevant for Romania).
According to World Bank data, Europe (excluding Russia) has a total of approximately 2,500 billion cubic meters of renewable fresh water annually. The countries with the largest resources are Norway, Turkey, France, Italy, Sweden, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Spain and Finland. According to the same data, Romania has a volume of approximately 42 billion cubic meters of water resources annually, accounting for less than 2% of the European total. Thus, it becomes obvious that Romania has reasonable resources at local level, but on a European scale it is a country with modest resources. However, there is an aspect to which Călin Georgescu is probably referring, that of water consumption, which accounts only about 15% of the total available resources, which indicates a surplus that could, in theory, be exported through interconnection pipelines with other countries. Nevertheless, such an idea is hardly feasible due to the lack of profitability. Indeed, in recent years, countries like Spain, Italy or Greece have suffered from severe water stress, especially during the summer, and importing water could solve the problem, even partially. However, such a project involves huge infrastructure costs; the pipeline would have to cross mountains, borders, protected natural areas, etc. Moreover, intensive pumping of water over huge distances, to ensure an optimal flow rate, involves massive energy consumption.
As a cost point of reference, we recall the construction by China of the South – North Water Transfer Project pipeline, over 2,000 km long, which cost over 70 billion Euro, given that it crosses a single state and favorable terrain. A Romania – Greece pipeline, for example, stretching approximately 1,000 kilometers, would cost, at current market value, at least 30 billion Euro, without factoring in maintenance and ensuring the security of the network. In addition, water exports also involve treatment costs, source protection, possible environmental taxes and technological loss costs (evaporation, infiltration, etc.).
Another major impediment to the profitability of such an investment is the alternative of seawater desalination, a much cheaper solution in the long term than bringing water through pipes from thousands of kilometers. For example, countries such as the Netherlands, Israel or the United Arab Emirates export desalination technologies instead of water. Likewise, France and Germany do not export water through pipelines, but make local and specific exchanges. Moreover, even cross-border irrigation canals are rare in the EU, due to coordination difficulties. An example in this regard is Romania itself, which has been exporting water for irrigation to Hungary for almost four decades. However, according to official data, the cumulative value of five-year contracts slightly exceeds the amount of 900,000 Euro.
In addition, countries facing long periods of water shortages also have water recycling facilities and more efficient consumption at their disposal.
It didn’t take Georgescu for the world to acknowledge the water crisis
BACKGROUND: The entire planet is aware that we are in the early stages of a global water crisis, and Călin Georgescu’s statements on the subject have brought nothing new to the table, apart from the unfeasible proposal that Romania export water in huge quantities through pipelines.
The challenges related to water, “whether it is too much or too little, or whether it is dirty and unsafe”, are already fueling food and health insecurity in entire regions of the world. World Health Organization statistics shows that, every 80 seconds, a child under five dies from a disease caused by polluted water, and hundreds of millions more grow up with considerably diminished life prospects.
For these reasons, dozens of international organizations, such as the UN, WHO, EU, etc., are drawing on hundreds of studies to develop strategies for the efficient management of planetary water resources, aware of the existence of the problem long before Georgescu’s “ground-breaking revelations”. Moreover, the export of water was not the only “bizarre” idea formulated by the former candidate over the years: Georgescu claimed that 5G technology is hazardous even though he uses a mobile phone based on that technology; he said juices contain nanochips, and that water has a conscience of its own. He also contested the existence of the SarSCoV2 virus and in the same vein claimed that he did not trust doctors, who cannot know better than a patient the problems they are facing. At the same time, Georgescu underwent surgery at a clinic in Germany for a minor knee condition and requested the lifting of judicial control measures in order to go to Israel for “medical procedures”.
Last but not least, it is worth mentioning the narrative that was circulated in local media in the fall of 2023, which stated, in complete contradiction to the reality invoked today, that the global cabal would trigger an artificial water crisis, in order to succeed in installing a world government, the last step towards gaining total control over humanity.
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