In spring 2025, Stadtwerke Wetzikon, the public utility in the Swiss city of Wetzikon (population 27,000), joined the Blue Community. To mark World Water Day this year, Kulturfabrik Wetzikon organised an event featuring the band Panikhertz on 21 March 2026. Pascal Bassu, the mayor responsible for the departments of Presidential Affairs, Development and Culture, gave the following speech:
Esteemed guests
It is a great pleasure to welcome you here today to the benefit concert and exhibition for UN World Water Day 2026 at the Kulti.
In Switzerland, we take drinking water for granted. Indeed, we still like to refer to ourselves as the water tower of Europe. We turn on the tap – and it flows. Clean, clear, always available. Almost always available. We’ve certainly experienced this during hot summers. It’s not always available. But it’s always there, really. This reliability and ease of access shape our daily lives and our relationship with water so profoundly that we are often no longer aware of its immense value. Yes, we water our gardens with it. We fill our Saturday baths with it and flush our toilets – with drinking water. It’s almost absurd. That’s how spoiled we are here in Switzerland.
Yet, this reality is by no means a given worldwide. For billions of people, access to clean drinking water remains limited or uncertain. Water is therefore not just a natural resource – it becomes a matter of justice.
Since the United Nations recognized the right to clean drinking water in 2010, access to water has been a human right. A right inextricably linked to dignity, health, and development. Without clean water, there is no healthy life, no effective education, and no sustainable economic prospects.
This is precisely where the difference between our situation in Switzerland and that in many other parts of the world becomes apparent. While we have a dense network of high-quality water supplies, other regions struggle with water scarcity, inadequate infrastructure, or contaminated water.
These differences obligate us. They remind us that water is not an inexhaustible resource – not even here. The careful use of water, the protection of our springs and waterways, and investments in sustainable infrastructure are crucial tasks – today and in the future.
At the same time, as part of a globally interconnected world, we also bear a shared responsibility that extends beyond our national borders. In this context, solidarity means not only support, but also awareness: of our own consumption, our ecological footprint, and the impact of our actions.
World Water Day invites us to pause and ask ourselves precisely these questions:
How do we treat water?
What value do we place on it?
And what contribution can we make so that other people also have access to this most essential, indeed vital, resource?
I am convinced that change begins with us. In our daily behavior, in our political work, in our collective commitment as a society.
Therefore, let us use today’s occasion not only to talk about water, but also to take responsibility – locally and globally.
I thank everyone who is committed to the protection and sustainable use of water. Your dedication is invaluable.
With that in mind, I wish you a wonderful concert, an inspiring exhibition, and stimulating conversations.
Thank you very much.
Pascal Bassu, City Mayor of Wetzikon, for World Water Day 2026.
