DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
ENVIRONMENT
Directorate C - Quality of Life, Water & Air
ENV.C.1 - Water
Brussels, 5 May 2014
Meeting of the Strategic Co-ordination Group 7-8 May 2014
Agenda point 4
Legal and implementation issues regarding Water Directives
The SCG is invited to:- Take note of the latest state of play in respect of legal and implementation issues regarding Water Directives.
Contact: Giovanni Vallera, 02 295 58783,
SCG (Strategic Co-ordination Group for the WFD Common Implementation Strategy)
7-8 May 2014
Agenda item 4 – Legal and implementation issues
- River Basin Management Plans (WFD). A large majority of Member States (25) have delivered all their plans, sometimes after the launch of infringement procedures (which have been closed after adoption and communication of the plans).
However to datethreeMember States (ES, EL, PT) have been convicted by the ECJ for not yet having adopted all their plans and they could face penalties should the Commission decide to take these Member States to Court again (this time under Art 260). PT has eventually delivered all its missing plans.
In December 2012, the Danish authorities notified the Commission that their River Basin Management Plans needed to be withdrawn.DK is before the ECJ (under Art 258).
The quality of the Plans adopted so far has been assessed and the Commission has published its findings in 2012, as part of the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Water Resources. As a follow-up to this assessment, the Commission has started to approach Member States for bilateral meetings in order that they can present their plan of action in respect of the recommendations highlighted in the assessment.22 bilateral meetings have taken place so far.
- Water Framework Directive: There are 8non-conformity cases open regarding the WFD itself at various stages and several cases based on bad application (following complaints invoking breach of the WFD).
- Definition of Water Services (WFD). Currently there are 9 bad application cases open on the interpretation of water services: AT, BE, DE, DK, HU, IE, FI, NL and SE. These cases are all at Reasoned Opinion stage whilst awaiting the outcome of the case against Germany (case number C-525/2012). Several MS have intervened in support of Germany. The oral hearing in this case was held on 4 March 2014. The opinion of the Advocate General is expected on the 22th of May and the Court decision before the end of 2014.All open cases concern the principle of cost recovery and the way some Member States have interpreted the scope of the obligation. In fact, several Member States seem to apply it only to the supply of drinking water and the disposal and treatment of wastewater. However, the Commission takes the view that "water services" is a wider notion that includes, for instance, water abstraction for cooling industrial installations and agricultural irrigation, the impoundment or storage of surface waters for navigation purposes, hydropower, flood protection and well drilling for agricultural, industrial or private consumption. The replies of the Member States concerned are currently being assessed.
- Groundwater Directive.Transposing measures have been notified by all Member States. Conformity check studies have been carried out and the identified shortcomings in transposition were being addressed under the EU Pilot procedure for 19 Member States (twelve of which have been closed).Threeinfringement cases are currently open on non-conformity.
- Floods Directive. Transposing measures have been notified by all Member States and all non-communication cases have been closed. Conformity check studies have been carried out and shortcomings in transposition were addressed by non-conformity cases (under the pilot procedure for all Member States currently using it).Eighteen Pilot cases were opened on non-conformity, 14 of them have been closed.Some of the replies are still under assessment and the horizontal conformity check exercise is still pending.
- EQS Directive. Transposing measures have been notified by all Member States. Conformity check studies have beencarried out and shortcomings in transposition will be addressed by non-conformity cases (first under the Pilot procedure for all Member States currently using it).The first Pilot letters have been sent to thirteen Member States. Most replies have been received and are under assessment and new requests are under preparation covering AT,DE,FI, IE, IT, SE, ES and UK )
- Nitrates Directive.There are 5 pilots and 9infringement cases (at various stages, including Art 260) currently open, with other cases in preparation.
- Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive:There are currently 24 open cases against 10 of the EU's 15 older Member States at various stages of the procedure. In December 2013, the Commission sent out the letters requesting Member States to provide the next reports and implementation programmes in the context of articles 15 and 17 of the Directive by June 2014. The Commission worked on a new Decision updating the templates for the art 17 implementation programmes, which will be put to vote in a Committee meeting scheduled for the 2nd of June and which will be followed by an expert group meeting, covering other aspects on implementation, including an update on the pilot programme on Structured Implementation Information and Information Frameworks (SIIFs).
- Drinking Water Directive:There is one non-conformity case against BG. The Commission intends to publish a synthesis report in spring this year on the quality of drinking water in the EU that will cover both the big and small water supply zones in the EU, based on latest reported data by Member States. The Commission will start preparing the next reporting exercise, together with Member States in an expert group scheduled for the 27th of June 2014. The Commission is also preparing an EU-wide public consultation on the Directive in order to assess the need for improvements, which is one of the key commitments of the Commission in its response[1] to the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Right2Water’.
- Bathing Water Directive. There are five active non-conformity infringement cases. The EEA has published its latestreport on bathing water quality on 21 May2013 which includes detailson the compliance levels with the minimum water quality standards set by the Bathing Water Directive across the EU. The publication of the 2014 report is scheduled for the second half of May 2014.
- Expert groups established under the Urban Waste Water Treatment, Drinking water and Bathing Water Directives. The Commission established MS expert groups under these 3 Directives aimed to provide advice and expertise to the Commission and its services in relation to the implementation of the mentioned directives. Detailed information on the 3 expert groups is available through the Register of Commission Expert Groups and Other Similar Entities: According to the Horizontal Rules for Commission Expert Groups[2], DG Environment is calling for applications with a view to selecting stakeholders as observers to the group of experts.The deadline for applications is set at 12 May 2014.
Author: ENV.C1 (in conjunction withD1, B1 andC2)
[1]COM(2014)177 final
[2] C(2010)7649