Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Environment - Water pollution - Directive 76/464 - Obligation to establish specific programmes to reduce the pollution caused by certain dangerous substances - Scope - Need to establish programmes and quality objectives

(Council Directive 76/464, Arts 6 and 7, and Annex, Lists I and II)

2 Environment - Water pollution - Directive 76/464 - Obligation to establish specific programmes to reduce the pollution caused by certain dangerous substances - Meaning of `programme'

(Council Directive 76/464, Art. 7)

3 Environment - Water pollution - Directive 76/464 - Obligation to establish specific programmes to reduce the pollution caused by certain dangerous substances - Waters affected - Meaning

(Council Directive 76/464, Art. 7(1))

Summary

1 Substances mentioned in List I of Directive 76/464 on pollution caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment of the Community, in respect of which the Council has not yet determined emission limit values, as provided for in Article 6 of the Directive, must be provisionally treated as List II substances governed by Article 7 of the Directive. Under that provision Member States are required, inter alia, to adopt programmes which include both water quality objectives and a requirement that any discharge of List II substances be subject to prior authorisation specifying emission standards calculated on the basis of those quality objectives.

Accordingly, the specification by a Member State of limit values for emissions of List II substances is not sufficient to exempt that Member State from drawing up the programmes provided for in Article 7 of the Directive.

Failure by a Member State to draw up such programmes may undermine the comparative examination for the purposes of harmonising the different rules governing water protection in the Member States, thus preventing full implementation of the Directive.

As regards the need to respect quality objectives, although Article 6(2) of the Directive requires the Council to lay down the quality objectives for List I substances, Article 7(3) of the Directive imposes the same obligation on Member States with regard to List II substances. The Community legislature therefore attaches particular importance to the laying down of quality objectives for all the substances referred to in the Directive.

In view of the need to draw up programmes and quality objectives, the fact that the result sought by the Directive may be attained by an improvement in water quality does not dispense a Member State from its obligation to adopt the measures provided for in Article 7 of the Directive.

2 The programmes to be drawn up by Member States under Article 7 of Directive 76/464 must be specific, that is to say, they must embody a comprehensive and coherent approach, covering the entire national territory and providing practical and coordinated arrangements for the reduction of pollution caused by any of the substances in List II which are relevant in the particular context of the Member State concerned, in accordance with the quality objectives fixed by those programmes for the waters affected.

Consequently, neither general rules nor ad hoc measures adopted by a Member State which, though comprising a wide range of water-protection standards, none the less do not lay down quality objectives relating to a given watercourse or area of water can be deemed to constitute a programme within the meaning of Article 7 of the Directive.

3 Since the purpose of the programmes referred to in Article 7(1) of Directive 76/464 is to reduce water pollution, the requirement to draw up those programmes extends to waters affected by discharges of substances or energy coming within the definition of `pollution' in Article 1(2)(e) of the Directive.

Thus, under the Directive, the obligation on Member States to draw up programmes including quality objectives is conditional not upon a finding of actual water pollution caused by List II substances (governed by Article 7 of the Directive) but upon discharges of those substances into the aquatic environment.