Ms Margot Wallstr
öm
Member of the European Commission responsible for Environment
Integrating economic assessment in the decision making process
International conference organised under the French Presidency
Lille, 13/14 September, 2000
Mesdames, Messieurs, bonjour!
J'espère que votre soirée à Roubaix a été des plus agréable. Bien que cette Conférence s'intéresse aux questions liées à l'eau, je fais confiance à nos hôtes de ne pas avoir mis de l'eau dans leur vin hier soir!
Je regrette de ne pas avoir pu me joindre aux discussions de la première journée de cette Conférence. Je voulais cependant souligner l'importance que j'attache à cet événement et mon plaisir à être avec vous aujourd'hui.
Tout d'abord, je voudrais souligner la place privilégiée qu'occupent les deux thèmes centraux de cette Conférence, l'eau et l'économie, dans la stratégie et activités de la Commission.
1. L'eau est une des priorités de la Commission dans le domaine des politiques environnementales pour les années à venir. To illustrate why this is the case, let me paraphrase the Swedish author Rolf Edberg who wrote :
"In the great cycle of nature, water always comes back. A mouthful of water from a mountain spring contains drops of water from the springs of Abraham, from the bathtub of Cleopatra and from the cooling system of a nuclear reactor".
2. Les aspects économiques des politiques de l'eau ont jusqu'à présent, reçus peu d'attention. Dans un contexte de rareté de la ressource en eau, il est important d'intégrer ces aspects dans le processus de décision conduisant à des politiques de l'eau adaptées aux grands enjeux actuels et futurs. Ceci nous permettra d'atteindre les objectifs environnementaux ambitieux que nous nous sommes fixés à moindre coût.
Ensuite, cette Conférence me donne l'opportunité de faire la première présentation officielle de notre Communication sur la Tarification et la gestion durable des ressources en eau qui a été adoptée en juillet dernier par le Collège des Commissaires. Je vous donnerai donc les messages clés de cette communication.
Enfin, cette Conférence est le premier événement faisant suite à l'adoption la semaine dernière par le Parlement Européen de la Directive Cadre sur l'Eau. Dans ce contexte, j'aimerais rendre homage au rapporteur Mme Lieneman qui a joué un rôle crucial dans l'élaboration et la finalisation du texte. Je suis heureuse d'être associée à cet événement pour souligner l'importance que nous attachons à la mise en oeuvre des directives environnementales en général, et de la Directive Cadre sur l'Eau en particulier.
Je voudrais donc remercier tout particulièrement Madame Dominique Voynet, le Ministère de l'Aménagement du Territoire et de l'Environnement et l'agence de l'eau Artois-Picardie pour leurs efforts et volonté à organiser un tel événement, et de m'avoir inviter à participer à cette Conférence. Je voudrais également remercier la région Nord-Pas de Calais et la municipalité de Lille pour leur accueil.
Let me now turn to water and economics, and briefly remind you where we stand today on these issues in Europe.
The status of our waters today shows how endangered the sustainability of water resources is in many river basins in Europe:
1. With regards to quality: many small rivers or aquifers are polluted. The nitrate concentration in waters in the Brittany region, for example, is very worrying. The situation in that region is indicative of the problems and issues at stake with water pollution. Recent concerns in Denmark with regards to MTBE leaking from fuel storage tanks is another illustration of water quality problems and of their complexity.
2. With regard to quantity: I will not attempt to cite all the aquifers and rivers which are over-exploited, mainly as a result of intensive agriculture. What is most alarming is the propagation of the problem: it is no longer limited to Southern Europe. Over-exploitation is acute in the centre of France in the Beauce aquifer for example, in the region of East Anglia in England and, although more temporarily, even in areas in the South of my own country, Sweden!
3. With regard to both quality and quantity: I would like to cite the case of tourism which puts a high pressure on water resources along the Mediterranean coast. This sector competes for water with other economic sectors and contributes to polluting a very fragile environment. However, tourism is rarely asked to pay for 'its share" of the environmental degradation it brings about.
Many discussions I have had with our partners from Central and Eastern Europe show that such water problems are very familiar to these countries. They are sometimes more acute. The protection of water resources will represent a key challenge for the enlargement of the European Union.
But how are we going to tackle these water problems? What will be the means that will support us in restoring and preserving the sustainability of our water resources?
I am very pleased to say we now have the necessary regulatory tool at our disposal, that is, the Water Framework Directive. This Directive was adopted last week by the European Parliament after more than three years of discussions and negotiations. The adoption of this Directive is a great success. It represents a milestone in the field of water policies.
With the Water Framework Directive, we have a legislative instrument that will: (i) fix ambitious objectives in terms of quantity, quality and ecology; (ii) provide the means to achieve these objectives through programmes of measures for each river basin; and (iii) associate all stakeholders and the public in the development of these programmes of measures.
As you all know, and this is the reason why we are gathered here, the Water Framework Directive also gives a clear role to economics in water policies. This Directive is in fact the first EU environmental legislation that makes economic principles and instruments clearly operational.
In the Directive, water and economics interact through two elements.
1. The use of water charging to act as an incentive for the sustainable use of water resources, and
2. The recovery of the costs of water services by economic sector, i.e. industry, households and agriculture.
The key issues were recently presented in our Communication entitled Pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources.
1. What are the main objectives of this Communication?
2. Why adopt the Communication now?
and
3. What are the main political messages embodied into the Communication?
The Communication has several objectives.
To start with, the Communication highlights the main issues related to the use of water pricing for enhancing the sustainability of water resources. We believe it is important to remove the obscurity surrounding many of the discussions on the potential role of water pricing that took place during the negotiations on adoption of the Water Framework Directive.
The Communication also presents the rationale behind the Commission's preference for a strict application of sound economic and environmental principles in water pricing policies. It is not a secret, and I have made this clear on several occasions during the negotiations on the Water Framework Directive, that the final water pricing article in that Directive is far from the Commission's position. We believe our position is still worth setting out and we clearly stand by it.
Last but not least, the Communication proposes a set of guiding principles that will support the implementation of the water pricing article of the Directive. Now that the Water Framework Directive is adopted this last objective is clearly vital.
Linked to this is the question of timing. We see the Communication as a first building block for putting the Water Framework Directive into practice. It will help us to maintain the momentum that was generated during the preparation of the Directive and ensure we move quickly to implementation.
Clearly this Communication is only an intermediary step. Combined with other initiatives such as this Conference, we believe it will lead to the development of clear guidelines for the development of river basin management plans that give due consideration to pricing. These guidelines will need to be developed with the involvement of different stakeholders. This will ensure they are comprehensive but practical, and they are understood, validated, accepted and owned by potential users.
I would like to stress the importance of associating experts and stakeholders from Central and Eastern Europe in this process. The participation in today's event of experts from Estonia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria shows such an association is already taking shape. The Conference on water pricing that we are jointly organising in Budapest at the end of this month with the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe is another event that will provide further possibilities to strengthen this association between experts from existing and future Member States.
Let me now address the third question I raised, that is the key political messages of our Communication.
The first message was already extensively referred to here yesterday, and will be the theme of most of this morning's discussions. To play an effective role in enhancing the sustainability of water resources, water prices and charges need:
1. To account for environmental and resource costs.
and
Examples from Spain and Athens reported to you yesterday have illustrated the role pricing can play in promoting efficient water use. There are many other examples that stress both the potential impact of adequate pricing policies and the conditions required for implementing such policies.
Some of you may wonder about the potential impact of environmentally-sound prices on low-income social groups or areas with little economic development opportunities. I can confirm we share the same concerns of integrating social, economic and environmental objectives into our policies. This is clearly illustrated by the current activities of the Commission led by President Prodi on sustainable development.
With regard to pricing, I would stress the possibilities some pricing structures offer in combining environmental, economic and social concerns. The Flanders region in Belgium provides a very good example : in this region, pricing structures for households integrate social concerns through a free basic allowance of 15 cubic meters. They also address environmental and economic concerns through high unitary charges per cubic meter above this free allowance.
Another key message relates to the basic principles for future water policies that we should observe to account more efficiently for the environment :
- A firmer application of the principle of recovery of costs is required.
- The promotion of metering devices should be promoted. I know metering is a sensitive issue in some Member States. However, we should not limit it to pricing, as knowledge on who uses and pollutes is essential for efficient water policy and management in general.
- We also need a transparent policy development process with the participation of users and consumers. This will increase the chances of successful implementation and is likely to make proposed policies socially and politically acceptable.
A crucial priority is the need to combine water pricing with other measures to ensure environmental, economic and social objectives are met cost-effectively. As stated at the outset of the Communication, we do not advocate a "pricing alone" policy. Clearly, pricing is not the only instrument that can (and will) solve water resources problems. However, pricing must be given due consideration to promote more efficient and less polluting use of our scarce water resources. The Water Framework Directive offers the right framework to do so in the context of the preparation of the river basin management plans.
My final message moves us away from water policies per se and can be summarised with a single word : consistency. Overall, sectoral policies, structural policies and cohesion policies need to be designed and applied to achieve consistency with environmental policies in general and water pricing policies in particular: let's not take back with the left hand what we have given with the right !!
As far as agriculture is concerned, reconciling water and agriculture remains a key priority for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CAP should support the sustainable use of water resources in line with the economic and environmental principles promoted in the Water Framework Directive and in the Water Pricing Communication. This means replacing the so-called "perverse" subsidies that are harmful to the environment with subsidies that promote a more sustainable use of water resources.
Je voudrais maintenant conclure en deux points.
Je suis consciente des différences d'opinion qui peuvent exister avec certains d'entre vous quant aux propositions que nous faisons. Certains souligneront que l'eau est à la base de la vie, et donc doit être traiter différemment des autres ressources et biens. Cependant, et pour faire un parallèle avec le pain ou avec d'autres aliments de base, est-ce que cela implique une eau gratuite en quantités illimitées ? La réponse est clairement non ! Notre position peut se résumer de la manière simple suivante : construisons un monde plus équitable où les pollueurs et utilisateurs paient pour leur pollution et usage ! Ceci nous permettra de protéger les ressources en eau à moindre coût, pour vous, pour nous… pour les générations futures.
Enfin, je voudrais de nouveau souligner notre attachement à la mise en oeuvre de la Directive Cadre sur l'Eau dans son ensemble. Nous espérons pouvoir établir des collaborations étroites avec les Etats Membres pour pouvoir répondre à leurs demandes et s'assurer ainsi d'une mise en oeuvre effective de la Directive. Nous sommes certains de l'efficacité des exercices de "Name and shame", qui est difficile à traduire en français mais qui peut se résumer en "nommer et avoir honte", que nous avons mis en place pour la directive Eaux de baignades par exemple. Cependant, nous ne voulons pas d'un tel exercice d'ici dix ans pour la Directive Cadre ! Et les dynamiques qui ont conduit à l'adoption de cette Directive nous donnent de nombreux signaux positifs et suggèrent que les Etats Membres souhaitent également travailler d'un commun accord à la mise en oeuvre de cette Directive.
Je vous souhaite une excellent seconde journée de travaux. Je suis confiante cette Conférence et vos efforts donneront progressivement à l'économie le rôle qui lui est due dans les futures politiques de l'eau en Europe.
Mesdames, messieurs, je vous remercie pour votre attention.
