Water legislation
UWWTD revision: stakeholder meeting – follow-up
The European Commission held a stakeholder meeting on the next steps of the UWWTD on 26 October. They expect a proposal to come in “mid-2022”.
In our last newsletter, we explained what happened in the stakeholder workshop on 26 October. Now nearly all presentations are available here. We hope the missing one and the report will be uploaded soon.
The directive concerns the collection, treatment and discharge of urban waste water and the treatment and discharge of waste water from certain industrial sectors.
Bathing Water Directive revision: workshop
On 29 and 30 November the European Commission held a workshop on the revision of the Bathing Water Directive.
EurEau is preparing its response to the public consultation that the Commission launched on the revision of the Directive.
The BWD requires Member States to monitor and assess bathing water for at least two parameters of (faecal) bacteria. They must inform the public about BW quality and beach management.
Water and agriculture
CAP: Approval moves on but transposition remains difficult
The European Parliament gave its final green light to the CAP compromise deal negotiated with Member States. Council will rubberstamp the deal within the next weeks.
One goal of the new CAP is help tackle climate change and the sustainable management of natural resources.
New Soil Strategy
The European Commission adopted its new Strategy for Healthy Soils by 2030, announcing a dedicated legislative proposal for 2022. EurEau supports this initiative in that healthy and unsealed soils are a prerequisite for the protection of drinking water resources and sustainable water management. To know more about it, have a look at the ‘EU matters’ blog here.
Part of the EU 2030 biodiversity strategy, this initiative will update the current strategy to address soil degradation and preserve land resources. The goals are to: protect soil fertility, lower erosion, increase organic matter, and define ‘good ecological status’ for soils.
Water and the environment
Microplastics: Commission to prepare legislation on unintentional releases
In late 2022, the Commission will present a legislative proposal to mitigate the unintentional release of microplastics (textile fibres, tyres wear particles, pellets) through source-control measures. A preparatory study, led by Biois and aiming to assess a wide range of mitigation measures, is currently underway.
To the study webpage https://microplastics.biois.eu.
Pharmaceutical legislation revision: public consultation open
The public consultation on the pharmaceutical legislation is open, with a deadline of 21 December.
With 527 votes in favour, 92 against and 70 abstentions, the Plenary the European Parliament endorsed the Montserrat Report broadly as adopted by the ENVI Committee on the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe. You can know more by reading the ‘EU matters’ blog here.
The legal framework for human medicines sets standards to ensure a high level of public health protection and the quality, safety and efficacy of medicines. It promotes the functioning of the internal market, with measures to encourage innovation. A medicinal product requires a marketing authorisation by the competent authorities before being placed on the market.
Revision of CLP Regulation: public consultation
EurEau submitted its feedback to the public consultation on the revision of the Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP Regulation) launched by the Commission.
The revision of the CLP Regulation aims to position it as the overarching instrument for EU chemical legislation through the establishment of hazard classes EDC, PBT, vPvB, PMT and vPvM, and the criteria to assess these hazardous properties, together with the one substance-one assessment principle. This would mean that a substance classified for its hazardous properties under CLP, will be considered hazardous in all other pieces of chemical legislation, thus, allowing for a swifter classification and restriction of PFAS for their persistent, bio-accumulative, mobile and toxic properties.
We expect the Commission’s proposal in Q2 2022.
RED and EED: EurEau supports renewable energy production
The Commission adopted a proposal for the RED and EED (Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency) directives in July 2021 and EurEau has submitted its feedback.
EurEau supports the general objective of the EED and the RED as a means to achieve energy and climate neutrality.
It is necessary to modify the definition of biomass in RED so that sewage sludge is duly recognised as a source of origin of biogas.
We stress the renewable energy production and the energy-saving achievements in the urban water cycle, being aware that, towards climate neutrality, there may be a trade-off between renewable energy production, energy efficiency and GHG emissions. We support the energy and especially GHG emission audits. These individual baselines open the possibility to respect the different efforts already made. Next to this, it also opens the facility level from which the energy and climate savings can be deducted.
The RED sets rules for the EU to achieve its 20% renewables target by 2020 while the EED will lead to stronger action on climate change, a GHG emission reduction of 50% and will contribute to other Green Deal initiatives.
Water as an essential service
NIS Directive: EU Parliament approves negotiating position with Council
On 28 October, the European Parliament’s ITRE committee adopted its report on the NIS2 directive and mandated the rapporteurs to launch negotiations with the Council on the final text. While EurEau welcomes the decision to include certain public sector companies in the SME definition, concerns remain regarding the potential inclusion of and related costs for very small operators.
Member States are finalising their common approach in the Council.
More details here.
The Security of Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS) sets a range of network and information security requirements that apply to operators of essential services (including DW and WW operators) and digital service providers.
Concessions Directive: Commission assesses water exclusion
On 15 November, DG GROW organised a meeting on the functioning of the Concessions directive and the impact of the water sector exclusion.
As to the water sector, only three Member States apply the directive and three more apply it partially. The discussion showed that assessing the impact of the water sector exclusion is difficult and solutions are usually adapted to local circumstances.
The Commission will present its reports on the above two topics before summer 2022.
More details here.
The Concessions Directive sets out for a regime for public procurement which sits apart from the main regime governing public contracts. It applies to both works and services concession contracts above a value of €5.225m.
