Lawyers claim water plan is unenforceable

Date: 11/05/2000

By Renée Cordes

AN ANALYSIS of planned new EU rules aimed at improving the quality of the Union's waters drawn up by Council of Ministers lawyers has concluded that the proposed regulations would be unenforceable.

The report has been seized on by MEPs who insist that the draft framework on water quality should contain a legally binding commitment to phase out the release of hazardous substances into the aquatic environment by 2020. Pressure for tougher Union-wide water quality rules has intensified since the cyanide disaster earlier this year which polluted large sections of the Danube river basin.

The European Parliament argues that making the rules mandatory would honour a pledge made by EU member states under the terms of the international OSPAR convention in 1998. But both the European Commission and governments reject this claim, insisting that the promise contained in the OSPAR accord is an aspirational goal rather than a binding target.

The analysis drawn up by the Council's legal service states that it is not clear from the draft text of the planned legislation whether member states would be legally obliged to abide by the stricter standards set out in the proposal or would simply have to aim to achieve them. It concludes that this is a question to which only the European Court of Justice could give an authoritative reply.

The debate over just how binding to make the planned new rules is expected to dominate a difficult round of conciliation talks between the three institutions, which are due to begin later this month. If a compromise cannot be found within the six-week deadline for thrashing out a deal, the Commission may be forced to go back to the drawing board to redraft its proposals.

This is a prospect which alarms green campaigners. "It would be a real disaster for Europe if we did not get a directive out of this after three years of discussion," said an advisor to the European Environmental Bureau, which is pressing for legally binding provisions. "At the moment we have such a weak piece of legislation."

The proposed water framework directive, which was drafted by former Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard and adopted by the full Commission in 1997, seeks to harmonise water standards across the Union and to protect and enhance the quality and quantity of aquatic ecosystems.

Pressure is mounting on EU policy-makers to agree a compromise on the framework as quickly as possible as the quantity of water being used across Europe is increasing rapidly, most notably in agriculture. A recent report drawn up by the European Environment Agency found that the amount of irrigated farmland in southern Europe had increased by nearly 20% over the past 15 years.

An analysis of planned new EU rules aimed at improving the quality of the Union's waters drawn up by Council of Ministers lawyers has concluded that the proposed regulations would be unenforceable.