The slippery road forward

The centrepiece of the EU's water legislation is not yet properly implemented, writes Jennifer Rankin.

Water has always been part of the core business of the European Union's environmental policies. The 1970s and 1980s saw a swathe of laws passed. The EU set the standards for clean beaches, fresh water and even the water used for rearing shellfish. But none of these laws approached the scale, ambition or complexity of the water framework directive, a legislative behemoth five years in the making that wrapped together many of these earlier laws and added numerous new provisions.

The main aim of the water framework directive is that all EU waters (inland, coastal and river) should be of a good ecological standard by 2015. The directive is applauded by green experts and campaigners, who consider it innovative in several ways.

First, it provides a legal framework for managing groundwater and surface water together for the first time. Second, it requires that the environmental costs of supplying water are included in its price. Third, it puts an obligation on member states to explain their decisions about water planning and management, by requiring them to come up with a "river-basin management plan". Among other things, the purpose of this plan is to assess the characteristics and economic use of a river and its surrounding area. Finally, the directive - winning extra brownie points from non-governmental organisations - offers more scope for public involvement in water management, for instance allowing the public to scrutinise a regional authority's plans for building a new dam.

Experts think that it is a major piece of legislation and predict far-reaching effects. Robert Cunningham, head of water policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), says: "The water framework directive is the most comprehensive, if not the most important piece of environmental legislation Europe has ever produced... If the directive is eventually embraced it will inevitably mean that any resource development will be open to much wider scrutiny." He says that this could mean fewer dams being built, as such projects would only get a green light when a pressing need for them can be shown.

But countries still have far to go to implement the directive. More than two-thirds of member states (19) are behind schedule in transposing the directive, according to a European Commission report published in March 2007. This report made a blunt assessment, concluding that transposition into national law was poor and in many countries simply inadequate. It found that around 30% of groundwater and 40% of surface water bodies were in danger of missing the 2015 target, with Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK deemed to be the worst offenders.

Experts see other concerns on the horizon. Pieter de Pous at the European Environmental Bureau is concerned that the flood management directive (2007) could be implemented in a way that undermines the water framework directive. He says "an engineering mentality" is still very strong when it comes to flood defences. Flood defence experts like to build dykes, gullies and concrete barriers that environmentalists often (although not always) see as unnecessary. De Pous says that conflict between the two directives is not inevitable, but questions remain about how the two directives will be implemented in a consistent way.

As with any target, there is a risk countries may tick the box, but miss the point. At RSPB, Cunningham perceives a risk that the plans that member states must produce (the river-basin management plans must be finalised by the end of 2009) will adhere to the letter rather than the spirit of the directive.

Of course, questionable progress in enacting EU laws is not restricted to the water framework directive. The Commission also gives member states a bad report card on how they dispose of waste water. A 2007 report (based on the most recent 2003 data) found that barely half (51%) of waste water facilities met EU standards. A directive on nitrates makes for a hat-trick of poor implementation on EU water legislation (see Factfile).

As with all areas of public policy, good intentions are plentiful, but dubious implementation creates the risk that they could go down the drain.

Agriculture is the thirstiest economic sector in Europe, accounting for 45% of all the water "abstracted" (taken from rivers and lakes) in the EU. (By contrast public water supplies account for 15% of abstraction.) Member states still have a poor record when it comes to implementing EU laws designed to stop agricultural pollutants getting into rivers and lakes. The period 2002-03 (the most recent data) shows nitrates pollution is still widespread in the EU15, with Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain worst at tackling the problem. Countries are so far from getting to grips with the problem that nitrate levels in groundwater actually increased in 36% of EU monitoring stations during the 1990s to 2002-03.

Beate Werner, head of water and agriculture at the European Environment Agency, says that one of the EU's priorities for water quality should be tackling "unsustainable and unsuitable use of fertilisers". She argues that the EU should support farmers to ensure they are engaged in environmentally-friendly farming.

The centrepiece of the EU's water legislation is not yet properly implemented, writes Jennifer Rankin.