WRITTEN QUESTION P-1358/00

by Francesco Musotto (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(19 April 2000)

Subject: Damage caused by the prolonged drought in Sicily

The prolonged and increasingly severe drought is becoming a chronic rather than occasional problem, with which farmers in the region will have to learn to live in the near future.

Some winter crops have been destroyed whilst spring crops are in serious danger, and this is having an adverse effect on farms, which are having to cope with the globalisation of markets, and on the already critical employment situation in the sector.

Since a large proportion of the water resources is increasingly diverted for private use, can the Commission say:

1. whether it has plans for a specific project to increase water resources by using non-conventional sources of supply, drilling down into water-bearing strata, creating small inland reservoirs in the hills and granting incentives to farms to encourage the more widespread use of less wasteful irrigation systems (drip irrigation equipment)?

2. whether the EU can ask the Member States what stage they have reached in implementing the rules concerning the unification of competence in the regional management of water resources?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(8 June 2000)

Water resources management in terms of its quantity aspects falls under Article 175 (ex Article 130s), paragraph 2 of the EC Treaty. This Article has not to date been used for the adoption of Community legislation covering water resources management. Presently, therefore, there is no Community legislation concerning the unification of competence in the regional management of water resources. Moreover, the Commission does not have plans to propose legislation on water quantity management. Water resources management as such, and consequently, the allocation of water resources remain the responsibility of individual Member States.

A proposal for a water framework directive(1) is currently in the last stages of co-decision between the Parliament and the Council with expected adoption in July or September 2000. This proposal introduces the river basin in its entirety as the fundamental geographic unit for water management. However, water quantity is treated as an ancillary parameter for achieving good ecological and chemical status of the aquatic ecosystem. The proposal is aimed at protecting and improving the ecological and chemical quality of waters and does not introduce Community competence for water resources management in terms of its quantity aspects.

The proposal encourages sound water management including the use of water saving practices and techniques, including drip irrigation equipment, as part of the measures Member States may use where there is a risk that the required good ecological and chemical status of waters will not be achieved.

The recent changes to the common agriculture policy aim as one of its axes at securing rural communities and at improving protection of the environment. This is inter alia achieved through agri-environmental measures, rural development policy and regional development programmes supported inter alia under European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) Guidance section where solutions adjusted to the diverse conditions in the specific rural area may be supported under Community funding.

The Community support framework for the Italian objective 1 regions (including Sicily) provides for measures to improve the water infrastructure for agriculture in rural areas, in a perspective to increase both availability of the resource and efficiency of management systems.

(1) OJ C 342 E, 30.11.1999.