Water proposal exposes deep rifts on standards

Date: 19/10/1995

By Michael Mann

NEW European Commission efforts to consolidate EU water policy look likely to throw the spotlight on deep divisions within the member states on the whole question of setting standards.

Throughout the EU, opinions vary over the extent to which standards should be fixed on a Union-wide basis. Divisions also exist over how to achieve the right balance between minimum standards for the quality of water and targets for the prevention of emissions.

With three proposed directives already under debate, there is little prospect of serious progress for at least 12 months.

A new Commission discussion paper represents its first attempt to bring consistency and coherence to a policy which officials admit “has a northern bias”, having been drawn up in the early 1970s before the accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal. This follows an initiative earlier this year from both the Council of Ministers and Parliament.

Nobody is in any doubt that the Commission has set itself an extremely ambitious target in seeking a framework directive to cover surface and groundwater. Its paper is deliberately vague, reflecting the fine line that officials in DGXI, the Directorate-General for the environment, are forced to take between those favouring an emissions-based policy and those favouring quality standards, and industrial and environmental interests.

EU water policy currently has several strands and amendments to the drinking and bathing water directives and the proposed Ecological Quality of Water Directive will further complicate the picture.

The new approach would encourage member states to draw up integrated programmes to meet quality standards, taking existing emission controls into account.

Commission officials admit that the paper is thin on detail, but believe that it will allow a political steer to be given when EU environment ministers meet informally this weekend (21/22 October) in Doñana.

The Commission is realistic about its chances of navigating too wide-ranging a measure through a Council with such divergent views. “This is certainly an extremely ambitious idea,” an official said.

Member state officials are hopeful that discussions on the framework will progress more smoothly than those on the Ecological Quality of Water Directive, which one official described as “probably the vaguest proposal we've ever had”. Talks in working groups have exposed huge differences in views.

In general Germany, likely to be the largest obstacle to agreeing a framework directive, favours emission controls, while the UK's “pragmatic” approach is mainly concerned with the cost-effectiveness of water-quality measures.

Nordic countries continue to press for EU standards to go further than they do now, while others believe that it is not for the EU to decide centrally on water-quality issues when local conditions are so variable. Several northern member states suspect widespread malpractice in the south, particularly on what the report calls the “much criticised” bathing water directive.

Initial reactions from a range of member states to the idea of a framework are described by officials as “fairly positive”.

Ideally, the Commission would like to bring forward a formal communication before the end of the year, although an official admitted that “we are not clear yet how detailed it will be” and that it would probably be held up until the new year. This would form the basis for discussions with interested parties before a formal proposal could be prepared late in 1996.

It would certainly include monitoring systems to assess whether quality objectives have been met and to encourage member states to draw up water quality plans to achieve those objectives.

As has been the accepted norm since discussions on the Ecological Quality of Water Directive, management plans would operate for river basins rather than political or administrative regions.

Common definitions would replace the plethora of terms in existing directives and a new administrative framework would provide a simple mechanism to review EU legislation on a regular basis.

Although much of what is envisaged would supersede programmes suggested in the Ecological Quality proposal and extend them to cover water quality, the framework would aim to complement existing legislation on emission controls.