Water policy framework under fire

Date: 11/07/1996

THE European Commission is facing the prospect of yet another inter-institutional battle over its planned framework for EU water policy.

With Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard planning to present a solid proposal to the full college on 9 October, uncertainty surrounds the role of the Parliament in taking a final decision.

In the majority of cases, environmental questions are settled under

the cooperation procedure. Although ministers take a final decision by a qualified majority vote, MEPs play a significant role in the process.

The management of water resources, however, requires unanimity in the Council of Ministers, with member states required only to consult the Parliament.

But Commission officials are concerned by MEPs' calls for the framework to be drawn up in the form of a 'programme' - which would be less binding on the member states, but would require the full participation of the Parliament through the co-decision procedure.

Officials see this as another stage in the assembly's bid to gain co-decision powers over as many areas of EU policy as possible - a campaign of particular importance given the current debate over the balance of power between the EU institutions in the Intergovernmental Conference.

Despite uncertainty about the fate of its ideas, the Commission is pressing on with its preparations, basing its final revisions on last month's conference on water policy and the opinion currently being prepared by parliamentary rapporteur Karl-Heinz Florenz.

Commission officials are assuming that the Parliament's environment committee will adopt its opinion on 26 July, allowing for agreement at the assembly's plenary session in September.

The threat of another inter-institutional battle is not the only problem facing the Commission as it puts the finishing touches to its proposals. It has also come under fire from environmental campaigners who claim the Commission is preparing to abandon controls over the emission of pollutants into the Union's water resources.

Officials are quick to reject this, insisting the proposed directive will suggest a range of measures to draw together what has been a disparate policy based on a patchwork of directives adopted over a period of more than two decades.

“It will be a reasonably ambitious but pragmatic approach. We will set objectives, but obviously it is not possible to get all water back to pristine condition,” said an official.

The Commission will propose broad objectives, including a definition of 'good' water. But it is at pains to stress that existing directives, such as those on urban waste water, nitrates and Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), will remain part of the strategy. Where such measures proved insufficient, the framework would allow regional authorities to use supplementary measures from a 'pick and mix menu' of options. Control would be coordinated on the basis of individual river basins, rather than leaving it to traditional local or regional authorities.

Additional tools available to policy-makers might include further emission controls, voluntary agreements, economic instruments or a licensing system to prevent too much water being removed from sensitive groundwater sources.

But despite Commission assurances, environmental campaigners are convinced the new approach will result in much of the existing legislation being repealed, without providing anything with any teeth to replace it.

Greenpeace claims the Commission is planning to repeal the Dangerous Substances Directive and exempt small and medium-sized enterprises from the terms of the framework.

Green groups also fear that basing water policy on ecological standards rather than firm emission limits will strip the policy of any new rules to force industry to cut pollution.