Water protection is in the pipeline

Date: 12/12/1996

By Michael Mann

THE European Commission is looking to make water consumers pay the “full economic cost” of what they use in an effort to improve quality and conserve dwindling resources.

A draft framework directive currently being studied by EU governments and industry is likely to impact particularly on the farming sector, which has traditionally escaped the rigour of Union laws covering other industrial sectors.

The Commission wants to reflect the genuine cost of water use by charging industry either for water abstraction or for discharging pollutants into water supplies.

But officials in the Directorate-General for the environment (DGXI) deny there are any plans to introduce levies on pesticides or fertilisers.

Despite its repeated pledges to make agricultural policy more environmentally friendly, the Commission would certainly run into fierce criticism from farmers, concerned about what they believe to be ever-worsening conditions in the rural economy, if it did so.

A position paper due to be adopted by EU farm union COPA/COGECA later this month stresses that farmers are prepared to improve their use of fertilisers and pesticides, “but they cannot commit themselves with regard to the level of nitrates, phosphates or phytosanitary products in water”.

The draft directive sets 2010 as the deadline for achieving its targets of protecting and enhancing both the quality and quantity of water supplies, basing management not on national boundaries but on cross-border “river basins”.

The policy combines controls over the emission of pollutants into supplies with agreed standards of water quality.

The Commission defines “good” surface water as having “a rich, balanced and sustainable ecosystem” and respecting established quality standards for pollutants.

Aware of increasing supply problems around the Union, the Commission is aiming to ensure that water users do not extract supplies from groundwater sources more quickly than they can be replaced.

Environmental group Greenpeace has welcomed the Commission's overall approach, but criticises the paper for leaving too much to the discretion of member states, which it fears may be too lax with miscreants.

The Commission has not put a price tag on the cost of new measures, but believes “that the overall advantages outweigh the costs”.

The concept of a framework stems from a growing recognition that the previous piecemeal approach to water policy had left dangerous gaps in implementation.

A formal proposal to be unveiled next year would require the support of a qualified majority of member states and would be adopted with the European Parliament under the cooperation procedure.