This extended abstract summarizes efforts to curb pollution in European Rivers after World Water II. It details how international societies pressured European governments to increase the sanitation process and how early warning systems were installed on the Rhine. In 1980 new ecological quality objectives were instituted, and the concept of the "whole river basin" as an entity spurred creation of the EU Framework Directive on Water Management in 2000. International cooperation between utilities and governments has caused dramatic improvements in water quality in European water bodies. However, the paper points out that there are new threats that include pesticide runoff, endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals, biocides, antibiotics, and flooding. A new era of cooperation between European countries has resulted in a research collaboration on the impact of industrial effluents on the receiving Rhine and Elbe waters, as well as the resolutions and recommendations from a number of international river conferences where scientists and policy makers from utilities, governments, industry and agriculture meet and exchange views. Includes extended abstract only.