Counting the cost of cleaner water

Date: 10/02/2000

By Simon Coss

UNLESS the European Union adopts a radically different approach to the way it manages its precious water resources, it could find itself facing a serious crisis within the next 20 years.

This grim analysis of the Union's current patchwork of water conservation laws lies at the heart of the European Commission's current crusade to persuade EU governments and the European Parliament to adopt a new and wide-ranging framework water directive.

If the Commission is successful in its bid to overhaul the current rules, the Union's future water policy will be based on a new concept known as 'river basin management'.

This approach would for the first time see a coordinated set of EU rules introduced to govern water quality all the way from primary sources such as mountain springs, through streams, lakes and rivers and into the sea.

The framework directive would ensure that users at any point on the water cycle would be subject to the same regulations. Experts say this approach would hopefully avoid the sorts of problems which occur today when, for example, river pollution from one country causes damage in another member state further down stream.

The Commission hopes the planned legislation will also encourage the Union's water consumers to use the resource more sparingly in future.

The idea that consumers should pay the real cost of water they use was a central plank of the institution's original proposal for the framework directive. But this is a a major bone of contention among the EU governments and MEPs, who will have to approve the Commission's plans if they are to become law.

In some member states, such as Ireland, water is currently provided free of charge to domestic consumers and introducing a levy on its use would be a politically unpopular move.

Elsewhere, notably in the Union's more arid southern member states but also in France, farmers are allowed to use huge amounts of water to irrigate their fields at little or no cost.

One Spanish MEP claimed recently that introducing full-cost water pricing would mean that his country's farmers would pay 30-50% more for their water than their British counterparts.

Until recently, however, most parliamentarians supported the Commission's argument that users should pay the real price for the water they consume. But the institution's environment committee finally gave ground on the issue last month.

Despite a call from its rapporteur on the framework directive for the committee to stick to its guns on charging, members voted to relax their stance. They now wants the EU to introduce "adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently", but are no longer demanding full-cost charging.

If this approach is supported by the full Parliament, one of the key stumbling blocks to agreement between the assembly and EU governments on the new water law should be removed.

But experts still predict that a deal will not be reached without lengthy conciliation talks between the two sides as they remain deeply divided over a number of other key issues.

These include a call from the Parliament for new water quality standards to be introduced within ten years, instead of 16 as suggested by EU governments. MEPs also want to ensure that no member state is granted a derogation from the new rules for more than 12 years. Governments are calling for an 18-year grace period.

Article forms part of a survey 'Environment'.