DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
ENVIRONMENT
Directorate D – Water, Chemicals and Biotechnology
ENV.D.1 - Water /
8th Meeting of Working Group F on Floods
Wednesday 27 & Thursday 28 October 2010
Day 1:
10:00 – 17:30 Ghent (BE)
Day 2:
10:00 – 16:00 "Centre Conference Albert Borschette", Room 2C, Bruxelles (BE)
Draft Minutes 1 (as of 21.12.2010)
Day I:
1 – Welcome and introduction
MA (Mark Adamson, co-chair) welcomed the participants to the 8th Meeting of WG F. He thanked Belgium for hosting the “Floods and Economics” Workshop, which took place from 25 to 26 October 2010, as well as the first day of WG F in Ghent. He informed the participants about his role as co-chair of WG F and announced that JRR from the COM will chair the second day of WG F taking place in Brussels.
2 – Approval of the agenda (Doc WGF8-1- ENV-agenda-v3)
MA informed the participants that a revised version of the agenda (version 3) for this WG F Meeting was issued by 18 October 2010 on CIRCA.
MA proposed the following amendments to the agenda: Under item 5b, EWA/Ronnie Falconer will inform about the outcomes of the EWA Expert Meeting on Pluvial Flooding and recent activities. MA informed that the “Climate Change and Flood Risk Management” Workshop report under item 5c is in progress, but not yet available. A room document for the “Floods and Droughts” Workshop planned under the Hungarian Presidency was distributed. The progress report under item 12e will not be possible as colleagues from GMES could not attend this meeting. Under agenda item 15 information on planned workshops and other initiatives will be provided by MB.
NL requested enough time to be planned for agenda item 9 (“Floods Directive reporting”) in order to give MS sufficient time to comment on the reporting sheets.
With these amendments and changes to the agenda, the agenda was approved
3 – Approval of the minutes of the last meeting (Doc WGF 8 -2 -ENV- draft minutes WG F 7 of 1.6.2010)
MA informed the participants that the minutes of this WG F Meeting will be drafted in a summarised way including next steps and follow-up points highlighted in a box under each agenda item.
Comments on the minutes of the last meeting have been received before WG F Meeting in written form by ES, CZ and DE. Requested changes were presented and agreed on screen. Additional comments were orally made during the meeting by NL (as regards a preliminary discussion on the conclusions of the “Workshop on Flood risk management Plans” in Maastricht during the last meeting and the need to again put the discussion on the conclusions of the Workshop on the agenda) and SE (as regards editorial remarks and SE statements), which have been included in the minutes.
With these changes in the minutes of the last WG F meeting, the minutes were approved. The revised final version of the minutes of the last meeting is available on CIRCA.
4 – Next steps on implementation
A presentation (to be found on CIRCA) on the “Legal and implementation issues update” was provided by MB. The presentation included a progress report on the legal issues (update on transposition, non-communication infringements and conformity checking), Article 3 notification of CA and UoM, Article 5 Reporting, the use of Article 13 and comments on the implementation of the Floods Directive in relation to the WFD.
a) Legal issues: Update on transposition, non-communication infringements and conformity checking
Legal issues: Transposition of the Floods Directive
MB informed about the status of infringements and highlighted that, after issuing the letter of formal notice and subsequently reasoned opinions, in case of no reaction or incomplete information by MS within the given deadline, the application to court for non-communication will immediately follow in this process. MB asked those MS, which did not yet fully transpose the Floods Directive, to provide updated information on the status of transposition.
FR pointed out that the implementation of the Floods Directive requires a two-step procedure in France. While the law was published by 12 July 2010, the application degree is in the process of consultation with different commissions and will be finalised before the end of 2010 (hopefully in November 2010).
AT highlighted that the revised Austrian law to implement the Floods Directive is currently in the Parliament for discussion and will hopefully be finalised by the end of 2010.
CZ informed that the revised water act was discussed in Parliament in May, came into force on 1 August 2010, but needs the elaboration of guidelines, which are in negotiation between different Ministries, and which will be finalised within the next months.
FIN pointed out that the national legislation to implement the Floods Directive came into force in June/July 2010. For the autonomous region of the Aland Islands, the status of implementation of the Floods Directive is not clear.
PL informed that the law to transpose the Floods Directive is currently in Parliament, and work will hopefully be finished by the end of 2010.
As LUX has missed to include some terms of the Floods Directive, a revised law will be voted in Parliament within the next 2 or 3 months.
MB informed the meeting that PT had communicated progress by email.
Legal issues: Conformity of transposition
At the moment 8 conformity studies have been received, the rest is expected to be obtained in January until March 2011. The next steps include first informal clarifications with MS, which are expected to start in the 2nd semester of 2011. The first tentative assessment is that the transpositions are in general of good quality.
b) Article 3 notification of Units of Management and Competent Authorities – feedback from COM on status of reporting, and compliance checking – feedback from Member States
MB provided information on the status of reporting as regards Article 3. 24 Member States reported on time, two have updated their reported information since the deadline of 26 May 2010 (FI, UK). For BG, EL, HU and MT it was assumed by the COM (MB) that WFD information applies, although the agreement in WG F was that a report should be submitted under Article 3 of the Floods Directive in both cases.
HU informed that there is a slight change for their CA, which was recently re-named to “Ministry for Rural Development”. FR pointed out that updated information was delivered after having reported on time in May 2010. In relation to the restructuring after the new government came into force, information on the recently re-named Ministry as well as additional institutions will be added as CA for NL.
c) Article 4-5 Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment
Due to several requests from MS as regards the deadlines for reporting according to Article 4 and 5 of the Floods Directive, MB made clear that PFRA reporting as regards Article 4 will be formally due by 22 March 2012 (three months after completion of the PFRA, which will be due by 22 December 2011).
The deadline as regards Article 5 may be informally extended for the first reporting cycle by six months for the completion of work (due by 22 June 2012) and three further months for reporting (due by 22 September 2012).
The COM made clear that this informal extension of the deadline for finalisation and reporting under Article 5 of the Floods Directive, only applies for the first reporting cycle of the Floods Directive. For the second reporting cycle of the Floods Directive, Reporting under Article 4 and 5 needs to be take place at the same deadline. The COM took note by the comment and doubts expressed by FR, that this will not be possible as the necessary implementation steps remain the same.
d) Use of art 13 - next steps
MB reiterated that the COM is interested in knowing the status of implementation if MS use Article 13 (cut-off date 22 December 2010) and will write to MS to ask for clarification on if Art. 13 will be used and possibly requesting further information. MB also pointed out that no specific reporting sheet or reporting formats or tools were elaborated for the use of Article 13, as the relevant information was included in each reporting sheet.
d) Implementation of the Water Framework Directive. River Basin Management plan compliance checking and public participation
MB gave a short presentation on the implementation of the WFD. 16 RBMP reports were achieved so far and are available on CIRCA. The screening and in-depth assessment of the reports is currently starting, and first bilateral feedback rounds with MS for clarification are expected to take place in 2011. The 3rd implementation report prepared by the COM will present a synthesis of data reported and will be published by the end of 2012 (“Blue print for safeguarding Europe’s waters”).
MB also highlighted that public information and consultation activities are a core issue of the WFD, and also the need to coordinate related activities of the Floods Directive and the WFD. MB drew attention to the relevant deadlines in the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 as set put in art 14 (WFD). Given the wording of art 9.3(FD), the COM expects MS to coordinate their activities as regards public participation between the WFD and the Floods Directive.
SE made clear that this coordination process not only needs the understanding of experts working on the Floods Directive, but also requires a mutual understanding from WFD experts. MB noted this point and will raise the need for a two way coordination among experts involved in the WFD and the Floods Directive on board for the progress report for the next SCG Meeting to be held from 10 to 11 November 2010 in Brussels (BE). DE highlighted the fact that the issue of hydromorphology (main issue of the WFD in relation to floods) is only a small item to be tackled in the process of public participation as regards the WFD. WWF pointed out that it could be difficult to arrange public information for both directives at the same time, but stressed the opinion that there is a strong value to have this coordinated approach and to take this challenge in MS.
Follow-up and next steps:
a) Transposition of the Floods Directive: MS to keep the COM informed about the present situation of transposition of the Floods Directive in national legislation.
b) Notification of CA and UoM (Article 3 FD): MS shall inform the COM of any changes within three months of the change coming into effect. The next steps as regards the notification of Article 3 include bilateral contacts for clarification with concerned MS. Furthermore the COM plans to include and visualise this information on CA and UoM – as for the WFD – by the end of November.
c) Use of Article 13: As a next step, the COM will issue – shortly after the deadline of 22 December 2010 – a letter to ask MS to provide information on the use of Article 13..
d) Implementation of the WFD and coordination with Floods Directive: MB to take the need for a two way coordination among experts involved in the WFD and the Floods Directive, in particular in the process of consultation on the river basin and flood risk management plans, on board for the progress report for the next SCG Meeting to be held from 10 to 11 November 2010 in Brussels (BE).
5 – WG F thematic workshops & information exchange
a) Floods and economics, Ghent (BE), 25-26.10.2010
· Oral summary report on key outcomes – key immediate follow-up action
· State of play of preparation of the Resource document on Floods and Economics
(Doc. WGF8-8-Scoping paper on flood related economics_final version_v2_October 2010. Please note that this is primarily a discussion document for the Thematic workshop preceding the WG F 8 meeting.)
BE gave a short oral summary of the “Workshop of Floods and economics”, which took place from 25 to 26 October 2010 in Ghent (BE). 9 presentations of different countries have been given. BE asked MS for their cooperation in finalising the related documentation in order to include all MS views in the final resource/scoping document. BE informed that one presentation (by Ecosystem Services) was not presented during the Workshop, but will be included in the related documentation of the Workshop. MA thanked BE for hosting this very interesting and important Workshop.
b) Flash floods and pluvial floods, Cagliari (IT), 26-28.5.2010
· Receipt of draft report – discussion on follow-up (IT) (G. Monacelli, IT)
(Doc. WGF8-9-IT-Flash-PluvialFloods draft report-Cagliari_v1)
IT provided a presentation (to be found on CIRCA) on the “Flash Floods and Pluvial Floods Workshop”, which took place from 26 to 28 May 2010 in Cagliari (IT). Information was given on the state of the report, the main outcomes of the Questionnaire which was circulated to MS before the Workshop, the objectives of the Workshop as well as conclusions and recommendations. EU Funding was identified as one main open issue. In relation to funding MB referred to the importance of post-event reviews and informed about a lessons-learnt meeting, which will be organised by DG ECHO and DG ENV in November 2010, on how to link the post-event-review phase to the prevention side (see more information under item 12).