A4-0290/96

Resolution on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on European Community Water Policy (COM(96)0059 - C4-0144/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament (COM(96)0059 - C4-0144/96),

- having regard to the statement by the Heads of State or Government at the summit of 19 and 20 October 1972 in Paris,

- having regard to the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, ICWE, of 1992 ((Europe's Environment, p. 556.)),

- having regard to Chapter 18 of Agenda 21 of the Rio Declaration of June 1992,

- having regard to the preamble to Directive 76/464/EEC of 4 May 1976 ((OJ L 129, 18.5.1976, p. 23.)) as amended by Directive 91/692/EEC of 28 December 1991 ((OJ L 377, 31.12.1991, p. 48.)),

- having regard to the conclusions of the hearing held by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection in Brussels on 20 June 1995,

- having regard to the conclusions of the Environment Councils of 23 June 1995 in Luxembourg and 18 December 1995 in Brussels,

- having regard to the Barcelona Convention, the conclusions of the conferences for the protection of the North Sea, the Berne Convention, the Convention on Biodiversity, the PARCOM, Helsinki, UNECE, Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Danube and MARPOL Conventions,

- having regard to the Declaration by the Council of the European Communities of 22 November 1973 on a first EC programme of action for environmental protection ((OJ C 112, 20.12.1973, p. 1.)),

- having regard to the Fifth Environmental Action Programme (COM(92)0023) and the Council resolution ((OJ C 138, 17.5.1993, p. 1.)) relating thereto,

- having regard to the Convention on wetlands of international importance (RAMSAR) to which all EU Member States are party,

- having regard to the importance of water in maintaining special protection areas and the Natura 2000 network in the context of the EU habitats and wild birds Directives,

- having regard to the Report on European rivers and lakes, Monograph No. 1 of the European Environmental Agency,

- having regard to the reports 'Europe's Environment: the Dobris Assessment¨ and 'Environment in the European Union¨, by the Environment Agency, 1995,

- having regard to the water pollution research reports of DG XII from the years 1988-1993,

- having regard to the report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (A4-0290/96),

A. whereas, because of the lengthy regeneration time for water, and cross- border pollution, sustainable development requires a preventive, pan-European system for the protection of water,

B. whereas, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity (Article 3b, second paragraph EC Treaty), those objectives and measures of a water policy which can be better carried out at Community rather than national level must be laid down,

C. whereas the existing and proposed directives in this field are fragmentary and contain varying, at times inconsistent and even contradictory provisions,

D. whereas both the Rio principles of sustainable development and the principles of prevention and precaution contained in the EC Treaty and the polluter-pays and prevention-at-source principles must be put in concrete form during the review of water legislation,

E. whereas the implementation of the precautionary and preventive principles contained in the Treaty and action against environmental pollution may be achieved by a combination of emission standards and quality objectives,

F. whereas emission standards as technological requirements on sources of pollution comply with the 'polluter pays' principle laid down in the Treaty,

G. whereas the use of Community-wide emission standards and quality objectives will allow a high degree of environmental protection,

H. whereas strict and uniform emission standards are much easier to impose and transpose than water- and pollution-related quality objectives and hence, on both environmental and competition grounds, are to be regarded as the preferable instrument,

I. whereas the setting of water- and pollution-related quality objectives is to be regarded as a supplementary instrument for establishing emission standards where specific waters need special protection because of their particularly high levels of pollution or particular ecological state,

J. whereas in the light of experience with Directive 76/464/EEC on dangerous substances, future water legislation should avoid playing the use of emission standards and quality objectives off against each other, as the two-pronged approach adopted in this Directive led to a watering down of emission standards,

K. whereas the guidelines for a European water policy and its priority objectives and measures must indeed be laid down at Community level, but it must be possible to take regional and local differences into account in their transposition and implementation,

L. whereas water sources, and wetlands in particular, are vitally important for the conservation of fauna living in the wild and their habitats,

M. whereas the prime objective of a coherent global approach must be to remove the present fragmentation of subject-matter, disaccord and contradictions among the existing and proposed directives in the field and to bring all other directives concerning water protection into line with it,

N. whereas the Community has yet to meet the international legal commitments it entered into under international conventions on the protection of water by transposing them into Community law,

O. whereas a future water protection policy will have to take due account of the water shortages or flooding problems already existing in a number of Member States,

P. whereas the Commission communication spectacularly misses its main goal of presenting a coherent global approach and simply repeats familiar environmental principles without putting forward the objectives and measures required to implement them,

Q. whereas the communication neither convincingly tackles the fragmentation and contradictions in the relevant legislation nor places it in the broader context of environmental legislation as a whole,

R. whereas there is no justification for changing the approach by allowing quality objectives and national action plans to replace emission standards,

S. whereas the communication is not based on a thorough analysis of the problems that have arisen in the past in transposing and implementing legislation on water,

T. whereas the communication establishes no link in terms of content with the Fifth Action Programme and what will follow it,

U. whereas the proposal for a Directive on the ecological quality of water ((OJC 222, 10.8.1994, p. 6.)) largely confines itself to requiring the Member States to set up programmes and make reports, without supplying any uniform physical criteria for good water quality as the basis for this list of obligations,

1. Notes that, applying the principle of subsidiarity (Article 3b, second paragraph of the EC Treaty), the priority objectives and measures of a Community water policy can be better attained at Community rather than Member State level;

2. Notes that the endeavour to achieve good ecological quality of water must be the most important objective of water policy, as it is the foundation for all other functions performed by water;

3. Calls, as a pre-condition for the implementation of the principles of Rio and the precautionary and prevention principles laid down in the EC Treaty and the polluter-pays and 'action-at-source' principles in the review of water legislation, for the introduction of obligations to reduce and keep pollution to a minimum and of comprehensive water protection;

4. Calls for the consolidation, simplification and standardization of water legislation on the basis of a global approach embodying a clear and systematic determination of the relationship between the emission-limit and the water- or pollution-related quality objective approaches;

5. Stresses the great importance of achieving a practicable water policy, as the poor implementation of directives on water has been one of the greatest problems in the past;

6. Stresses that the simplification and standardization of water legislation must lead neither to any lowering of existing standards and water protection, nor to distortions of competition;

7. Calls as the absolute minimum for the establishment of strict and uniform emission standards;

8. Calls, by way of a combined approach, for the formulation and adoption of water and pollution-related quality objectives as supplementary instruments to the emission limitation approach to ensure that excessive pollution is avoided and the success of water protection measures is monitored;

9. Urges the establishment of environmental quantity objectives for water and the setting of limits to the quantities of water which may be extracted from specified sources, in order to maintain their ecological value;

10. Points out that, under the principle of subsidiarity and in recognition of natural differences, while the priority objectives and measures should indeed be laid down at Community level, the way they are implemented and adapted to circumstances is a matter for the Member States;

11. Calls for a coherent global approach to be drawn up, designed principally to eliminate the fragmentation, disaccord and contradictions in the existing and proposed directives on the subject and to be in concordance with all other directives relevant to water protection;

12. Calls on the Commission to take account of the needs of long-term water protection in its other policy fields and in particular to help avoid action endangering waters;

13. Calls for protection for the entire variety of ecosystems and for this to be taken into account in the global approach;

14. Calls for the common agricultural policy to play an active part in avoiding water pollution by nitrates and pesticides and to use a sustainable approach to water extraction, and for this to be taken into account in the global approach;

15. Believes that measures and action to alleviate the negative impact of industry and energy policy (reducing water quality, heating and large-scale dams and barrages) should be taken into account in the global approach;

16. Considers that measures and action to alleviate the impact of transport policy (destruction of valuable ecosystems by canalization) should be taken into account in the global approach;

17. Notes with satisfaction that the Commission communication opts for a river basin approach and that, in view of the latter's cross-border nature, a European approach is necessary;

18. Calls for the objectives and measures of a European water policy to be dovetailed with other relevant EU policy areas such as agriculture, industry and transport;

19. Calls for the Community to meet the legal commitments it entered into under international conventions on water protection by systematically transposing them into Community law;

20. Calls for the preservation of biodiversity to be a specific priority for European water policy, in order to meet the Community's international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity;

21. Calls for the already existing water shortages or flooding problems in a number of Member States to be taken into account when a global approach is formulated;

22. Considers that a major objective of European water policy must be the protection and restoration of wetlands in view of their essential role in regenerating groundwater, water storage and the reduction of environmental pollution levels;

23. Notes that the Commission communication does not put forward a coherent global approach;

24. Calls for a global approach in which the priority objectives and measures for a European water policy are to be laid down on the basis of a systematically defined relationship between emission standards and quality objectives, to be adopted in a framework directive by the Council and the European Parliament;

25. Notes that the proposal for a Directive on the ecological quality of water, because of its limited and partial approach, is not a suitable basis for a framework directive on water;

26. Calls for the framework directive on water to tighten up and simplify the multitude of existing directives on water by amalgamating Community provisions such as definitions, lists of industries and lists of substances, reporting obligations, monitoring and measurement procedures, and by regulating the interplay of the various instruments and applying them in combination and calls for the Commission to examine the impact of the framework water directive in respect of the level of environmental protection and the competition situation;

27. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.