Question:
The recent pedestrianisation of the "Place St-Catherine" in central Brussels , including provision of a new public drinking-water source, leads me to wonder whether there are other such initiatives in major European citiesany opinions?

Answer: I was just going to respond about Milan, but not in such enthusiastic terms. You refer to what are called "the widows" or "the green dragons".

The first denomination ("le vedove") is referred to the fact that the fountains are always active ("weeping"). There is no tap as such.

The second ("il drago verde", common in an expression like "I offer you a drink at the Green Dragon") refer to the design of the little fountains. The main body is painted dark green, and the tap (well, it's not a tap, what's the word ? spout ?) ... I mean, where the water comes out, is shaped like a dragon head, and painted bronze. A curious thing is that the spout has a little hole on the above. If you close the main spout below with your finger, water springs out from the hole. Good for drinking, and very popular among children to play tricks !

The lack-of-enthusiasm in my answer intended to be in the sense that, yes, such drinking fountains were always there (while there is a definite lack of monumental fountains in Milan (*)), but nowadays I am seeing less of them. You can still find them in parks, or in secondary streets, but if they refurbish some square, they won't put it back.

It was not that I diskike the green dragons. I actually have even a small ceramics model at home ... the people of the Aqueduct used to have them produced on request.