Call for crack-down on farmers who pollute water with nitrates

Date: 15/10/1998

By Simon Coss

EURO MPs will vote next week on plans to crack down on farmers who pollute the Union's water supplies with manure and urine from pigs and cows.

The Parliament's environment committee has already voted in favour of tough measures proposed by Irish Green MEP Patricia McKenna, who argues they are needed to ensure that member states comply with a 1991 EU law on water pollution by nitrates - one of the biggest environmental problems facing the Union.

By far the largest single source of nitrate pollution is the faeces and urine produced by intensively farmed animals. “It should not be acceptable for farmers to receive EU subsidies if they are flouting EU rules,” insisted McKenna.

The MEP's report, to be voted on by the full Parliament at its plenary session in Strasbourg next week, calls on the European Commission to toughen its stance against Union governments which fail to meet the provisions of the nitrates directive.

“The Commission should have taken infringement proceedings against member states before now. It is the only thing which seems to work,” she said, pointing out that the nitrates directive is quite possibly the least respected law on the EU's statute books.

Since it was adopted at the beginning of the decade, nearly all member states have failed to meet its provisions. Many observers argue that this is due in no small part to the unwillingness of national governments to take on the powerful farmers' lobbies in their respective countries.

“All member states have been asked to take action in this area but they haven't. Why? Because they have to face the farmers' lobby,” said one Commission official. “There are also social problems here. You can't just tell farmers to stop work. Farmers rarely accept change unless you offer them cash.”

Experts argue that when they approved the nitrates directive, EU governments were signing up to something which they knew they would never be able to enforce. Critics point out that the directive was adopted while the Dutch held the EU presidency, yet the Netherlands is one of the worst offenders when it comes to flouting the nitrate law.

“There are more pigs and cows than inhabitants in the Netherlands,” explained one Commission official, stressing the scale of the challenge confronting certain governments.

Other regions which face particular problems include Brittany in France, northern Belgium, East Anglia in the UK, the German Land of Schleswig Holstein and the Po Valley in Italy.

But McKenna argues that it is possible for countries where intensive agriculture is practised to tackle the problem of nitrate pollution. She points to Denmark, which now has laws setting out the maximum number of animals which can be reared per hectare of land, as an example of a country which has achieved significant improvements.

“The Danes have shown you can make progress. They had enormous problems a while ago,” she said.