PARLIAMENT - COUNCIL CONCILIATION COMMITTEE : Agreement on Water Framework Directive

After five years of work on what is a fundamental review of Community water policy and following intense negotiations over the last months, the Council and the European Parliament, meeting for the second time in the Conciliation Committee⁽¹⁾, after a first meeting on 23 May, eventually secured in the early hours of the morning an agreement on the proposed Directive establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. This Directive will establish a framework for the protection of all bodies of surface water (inland, transitional and coastal) and groundwater. The two institutions will now have to confirm the agreement by an absolute majority of the votes cast in the case of the Parliament and by a qualified majority in the Council - subject to which the Directive will be definitely adopted.

Since the introduction of the co-decision procedure, the discussions on the proposed Water Framework Directive have been one of the most difficult. However, in spite of the complex nature of the legislative proposal, the number of amendments presented by the European Parliament (66) and the far diverging positions, the co-decision procedure proved to function even under such difficult circumstances, also because of the good inter-institutional co-operation.

The conciliation focused, in particular on Articles 1 and 4 laying down the purpose and the environmental objectives of the Directive, Article 11 concerning the programme of measures, Article 16 establishing the strategies against pollution of water and the new Article 16a introducing the principle of a daughter directive to prevent and control pollution of groundwater, as well as on the definition of hazardous substances in Article 2.

The Water Framework Directive will aim at preventing further deterioration of the water status and at enhanced protection and improvement of the aquatic environment. Furthermore, it will seek to prevent pollution in general and foresees in this respect the progressive reduction of chemical pollution, in particular the cessation or phasing out of discharges, emissions and losses of priority hazardous substances presenting an unacceptable risk to or via the aquatic environment. The timetable for action in this respect shall not exceed 20 years after the adoption of the list of substances identified.

Furthermore, as a result of the conciliation, the timetables for the implementation of the different aspects of the Directive have been reduced, in most cases by one year, in comparison with the common position.

Background

The draft Directive is designed to :

- develop integrated and coherent water policies,

- provide a "safety net" to identify water issues which are not yet adequately addressed and which will require action to remedy the situation,

- establish a sound basis for the collection and analysis of a large amount of information on the state of the aquatic environment to provide the essential information upon which the competent authorities can develop sensible and sustainable policies,

- require transparency based on the publication and dissemination of information and public consultation.

Water policy would be implemented on the basis of river basin management plans. For each river basin, the Directive would require:

-  an assessment of the characteristics of the basin,

-  the establishment of Programmes of Measures to achieve the objectives of the Directive,

-  the summarising of all the above in a River Basin Management Plan, and

-  public consultation on that Plan.

^{(1) The Conciliation Committee has 30 members : 15 members of the European Parliament and 15 representatives of the Council. The meeting of 28/29 June was co-chaired by Mr James PROVAN, Vice-President of the European Parliament and by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Pedro SILVA PEREIRA, State Secretary for Regional Planning and Nature Conservation of Portugal.}