Executive summary of nexus-relevant policies and recommendations for policy improvements

Policy making in a nexus context, pitfalls and recommendations for improvement

The added value of a nexus approach stems from the exploitation of synergy between policies, avoidance of conflicts and negative trade-offs because they were foreseen and addressed, and innovative solutions stimulated by broad cross-sectoral views and relational learning. Conflicting interests between sectors in the nexus between water, land, energy, food and climate, insufficiently addressed in strategic European and national policy, have led to inconsistent implementation and undesired developments at regional scale. On the other hand, options for synergy could get more explicit support in European and national legislation and policy instruments. Several regional cases mentioned European funding as a necessary condition for cross-sectoral cooperation.

Regulatory gaps and inconsistencies in regulations for water, land, energy and climate

Four national and six regional cases reported regulatory gaps, ambiguities and inconsistencies in regulations for water, land, energy, agriculture and climate, that caused conflicts and missed opportunities for synergy between sectoral policies during implementation. A nexus approach could support policy coherence, but this takes political will, a cross-disciplinary mindset and a carefully organised process through the whole policy cycle (Figure). Monitoring and reporting of cross-sectoral policy impacts at regional and local scale can feed a bottom-up nexus learning process at strategic level.