EurEau News

IWA World water congress

Bruno Tisserand, EurEau President was in Tokyo representing us at IWA, accompanied by a lot of our members. We co-organised a workshop on ‘Reuse, recover, recycle – Accelerating Resource Recovery from Water’ with the Ressource Recovery from Water Cluster from IWA. It was a great success with a lot of attendees and an in-depth discussion on the future path.

5th EU Water Conference

Anders Finnson, chairperson of our JWG on the WFD represented EurEau during the 5th European Water Conference in Vienna. Anders spoke about ‘Europe’s Water Today’. He was one of a strong EurEau contingent at the conference.

All the conference material, including presentations and links to the live stream recordings, is available on the conference website.  The programme, presentations and background papers are also available on CIRCABC.

 The next meeting of the SCG will take place on 8 November in Brussels.  The main discussion item will be the next CIS Work Programme.  The invitation and draft agenda will be circulated via the AGM Registration System in due course.

Slovenian Public Utilities Conference

EurEau’s Secretary General Oliver Loebel spoke at the Public Utilities Conference of Slovenia in Podcetrtek on 21-22 September.

Regulation on Water Reuse: Intergroup meeting planned

The working group on Agriculture and Water Management, of the Intergroup on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Sustainable Development, chaired by MEP Michel Dantin will organise a meeting on the Regulation on Water Reuse on 8 October evening from 18.30 to 20.30. EurEau will speak. To register for the event, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The meeting will be held in the European Parliament, Room 6Q1.

Other speaking opportunities

On 25 September, Oliver Loebel presented water-related topics to the European umbrella body of the metal industry Eurométaux and on 28 September, he spoke on microplastics at the high-level meeting of the tyre and road wear particles platform. 

Bertrand Vallet was a member of the panel at the ESPP event on the Fertiliser Regulation in Brussels on 5 September. He presented the EurEau position and opinion on the work of the STRUBIAS group and the possibility to have CE marked fertilisers with material coming from sewage sludge.

EU news

ENVI vote on the DWD

The Environment Committee of the European Parliament adopted the report of MEP Michel Dantin (EPP/FR) on the Drinking Water Directive on the 10 September in Strasbourg. You can read the result of the vote on the ‘EU Matters’ blog.

The vote in Plenary will take place between 23-24 October.

You can watch the video that sums up our position with EurEau Vice President Claudia Castell-Exner here and read our position paper on the DWD.

Single Use Plastics Directive: Parliament committee vote in mid-October

The European Parliament’s ENVI Committee will adopt its report on the directive on the ‘Reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment’ in mid-October. A number of MEPs support our view that producers, and not water consumers, should be held responsible for the economic damage inflicted by wet wipes on the waste water infrastructure.

Read our position paper and our article on banning wet wipes from sewers.

Circular economy and plastics: European Parliament wants more ambition

On 13 September, the European Parliament adopted its own-initiative report on the EU plastics strategy. The report supports the Commission communication and calls for incentives to boost the market for secondary plastics. Regarding microplastics, it calls for research on “the sources, distribution, fate and effects of both macro-and micro-plastics in the context of waste water treatment and storm water management” and on “sludge treatment and water purification technologies”.

We broadly support the Parliament's report but we would like to see more Extended Producer Responsibility and use of the Polluter Pays Principle.

Regulation on Water Reuse

The rapporteur on the file for the ENVI committee, MEP Simona Bonafè, published her report on water reuse on 25 September. The report, not yet public, is in Italian and should be translated into English for the first week of October. The debate in the ENVI committee is scheduled for the 18 October with a deadline for amendments on 25 October.

The rapporteur is generally of the same opinion as the AGRI committee, MEP Marijana Petir, who also published her report. You can find it here. It contains essentially cosmetic amendments that help to bring clarity to the text. The deadline for the amendments for this report is 11 October.

Sludge to farmland: EurEau supports the global initiative

EurEau signed a pledge to authorise the use of high quality and strictly controlled sewage sludge on farmland under the Global Good Agricultural Practices (Global GAP). Currently, Global GAP excludes this option. An alliance of stakeholders mainly from northern America and Europe wants to enter into discussions with Global GAP regarding which requirements sludge would have to meet to be accepted for farmland application.

CAP: Commissioner Hogan feels pressure on environmental credentials

On 6 September, EurEau met with members of Commissioner Hogan’s cabinet to discuss the ‘blueing’ of the Common Agricultural Policy. We deplore the lack of clear targets linked to conditionality. Hogan’s cabinet pointed at several tools to increase sustainability and warned that co-legislators might dilute environmental requirements for the sake of simplification.

It is unclear whether Parliament and Council can agree on a common position before the 2019 European elections.

AMR (EEA workshop, EP report, 15 November meeting)

On 2-3 October, Bertrand Vallet will represent EurEau at a workshop organised by the European Environmental Agency on the antimicrobial resistance and urban waste water treatment plants. He will be supported by Dines Thornberg, expert from our Danish member DANVA. It follows the European Parliament INI report adopted on 13 September on ‘A European One Health Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance (2017/2254(INI))’. We regret that the European Parliament pointed at WWTP as a major factor in the emergence of AMR’s when no scientific study supports this in Europe. AMR needs global action, not actions that focus on one element – such as WWTP – which have a limited impact.

Chemicals and circular economy: Commission launches a public consultation

The Commission launched a public consultation on the interface between chemical, products and waste legislation in the framework of the circular economy. On 13 September, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on this topic, calling on the Commission to come up with legislation on substances of concern in recycled materials and harmonise end-of-waste criteria.

EEA report: Europe’s water bodies in a poor state

In its new Signals report ‘Water is life’, the European Environment Agency regrets that Europe’s freshwater and marine ecosystems face increasing pressure from human activity, calls for the ‘blueing’ of our economies and higher water efficiency.

The report does not only look at chemical and ecological status but also at plastics in the aquatic environment and the impact of climate change.

Events

8 October – Waste no time, waste no water; European Parliament, Brussels. Intergroup meeting, hosted by Michel Dantin.

10-11 October - Final conference of the AQUACROSS project 'Ecosystem-Based Management for the Protection of Aquatic Biodiversity – Practice and Lessons Learnt'; Brussels, Belgium. Registrations.  

7 November - Young Water Leaders first global event; Berlin, Germany.  

08-09 November – European Nutrient Vent @ECOMONDO 2018; Rimini, Italy. Katerina Christodoulou will present a European example of water reuse and nutrient recovery in the circular economy in Mediterranean countries.

14 November - Stakeholder workshop: Update on TOPPS water protection projects to reduce plant protection product losses to water; Brussels, Belgium. Register here.

19 November – ‘The drivers of development’; Turin, Italy. Organised by the Turin Water Utility SMAT. Carla Chiaretti from the secretariat will present.

22 November - Bertrand will present EurEau’s position on the Regulation on Water Reuse at ESAMUR in Murcia, Spain.

5-6 December 2018 - Making Europe a safer place: demonstrating the impact of EU-funded security research; Brussels, Belgium.

28-31 May 2019 - 4th European Climate Change Adaptation Conference: working together to prepare for future; Lisbon, Portugal.

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