WFD newsletter . October 2004.
Date: 2010-11-22
Institutions: Directorate-General for Environment
Subjects: EU environmental policy, application of EU law, environmental protection, serial publication, water

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European  Commission

WFDWFDWFDWFDWFD

NEWSLETTER

  3rd Edition, October 2004

Contents:

(cid:127)  The Main Outcomes of the Water Directors’ meeting 22 - 23 June  2004
(cid:127)  The Pilot River Basin Network - The Scheldt, Jucar and Oulujoki PRBs
(cid:127)  The Information Board - upcoming events, meetings, information sources

Welcome to the third Water Framework Directive Newsletter presented by the European Commission’s
Directorate General for the Environment: a newsletter for everyone interested in European water
policy and in particular the process of implementation of the Water Framework Directive, or WFD.

The  aim  of  this  newsletter  is  to  bring  you  up  to  date  with  what  is  being  done  under  the  WFD  Common
Implementation Strategy, an outstanding joint effort to improve, protect and enhance the quality of our rivers,
lakes, transitional and coastal waters and groundwaters.  Published several times a year, the WFD Newsletter
will bring you news of what progress has been made and new issues arising from the process.  By reading
WFD Newsletter we hope it will not only inform you of what is going on, but inspire you to get involved and
play your part in helping to deliver one of Europe’s most ambitious pieces of environmental legislation to-
date.    WFD  Newsletter  will  be  available  electronically  free-of-charge  through  the  WFD  web-page  of  the
Environment DG (see below).

In this edition we focus on the main outcomes of the Water Directors meeting in June 2004 and look at state
of transposition of the Water Framework Directive in the Member States (page 2). We examine progress in
three of the pilot river basin districts (Scheldt, Jucar and Oulujoki) (page 3). Of course, we also provide you
with updates of the key news on the WFD, forthcoming events, meetings and workshops, and details on
where to find more information. We hope you find this newsletter enjoyable and informative; in order for us to
make this newsletter as useful as possible, please send any further comments to the WFD Helpdesk.

We hope you find this newsletter enjoyable and informative; in order for us to make this newsletter as useful
as possible, please send any further comments to the WFD Helpdesk (env-wfd-circa@cec.eu.int).

The Water Framework Directive - What is it?
In simple terms the Water Framework Directive (also known as the WFD or Directive 2000/60/EC) is a
legislative framework to protect and improve the quality of all water resources such as rivers, lakes,
groundwater, transitional and coastal water within the European Union. The WFD was published and
entered into force in December 2000 (Official Journal of the European Communities, L327, 22 December
2000, pages 1-72). Member States must incorporate the WFD into national law by the end of 2003.
Thereafter, many more steps must be taken to achieve “good status” of all European waters by 2015.

The Common Implementation Strategy
The  Common  Implementation  Strategy  for  the  Water  Framework  Directive  (known  as  the  CIS)  was
agreed by the European Commission, Member States and Norway in May 2001. The main aim of the
CIS is to provide support in the implementation of the WFD, by developing a common understanding
and guidance on key elements of this Directive. Experts from the above countries and candidate countries
as  well  as  stakeholders  and  non-governmental  organisations  are  all  involved  in  the  CIS  process. A
series of working groups and joint activities has been carried out and the results of the first two years
has recently been published on a CD-ROM. The current structure and the ongoing activities are laid
down in the work programme 2003/2004.

More information on the WFD and the CIS can be obtained from:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html  or
http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/env/wfd/home

 
Feature: The main outcomes of the Water Directors’ Meeting 22-23 June
2004 - Dublin

The Water Directors of the European Union (EU25, Candidate Countries and EFTA Countries) met on 22 – 23 June in
Dublin on invitation of the Irish Presidency. The agenda included the following issues with relevance to the Water Framework
Directive:

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the progress of the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive;
the preparation of the draft register of intercalibration sites and the guidance on the intercalibration exercise;
the agreement of the mandate on eutrophication activity;
the finalisation of the document on the Article 5 risk analysis;
the progress on the integrated pilot river basin testing exercise;
integration of water policy in other policy areas, in particular agriculture policy and regional policy;

The Water Directors were able to agree on a number of issues, including the endorsement of a mandate for an activity on
the assessment of Eutrophication and a Policy Summary on “Principles and communication of results of the first analysis
under  the  Water  Framework  Directive”. The  Policy  Summary  identifying  five  principles  for  the  preparation  of Article  5
analysis on pressures, impacts and water uses and made recommendations for communicating the results. In addition to
the Policy Summary, a more detailed background document was finalised (both documents are available on the public
area  of  Circa).  The  pilot  river  basins  (PRB)  presented  their  first  outcome  report.  The  Water  Directors  welcomed  the
progress that had been made and thanked the PRBs and Steering Group for their considerable efforts.  A policy summary
of the key results of the first phase of the PRB exercise was agreed. Furthermore, considerable progress on the preparation
of the intercalibration network was noted.

The  Water  Directors  held  a  discussion  on  environmental  objectives  and  their  wider  implications.  They  agreed  that  a
Drafting  Group  should  be  formed  to  take  the  discussion  paper  presented  by  the  Commission  as  a  starting  point  for
developing these ideas further. It is intended to discuss the issue on the next meeting and possibly to organise a policy
level workshop to be held on the issue in early 2005. The issue of the WFD and Agriculture was discussed in detail and
it was noted that it is clear from the emerging characterisation results that tackling diffuse pollution from agriculture will be
important  element  in  meeting  Good  Ecological  Status.  The  Water  Directors  recommended  that  a  Strategic  Steering
Committee  be  established  as  soon  as  possible  which  should  report  to  the  Water  Directors.  It  was  also  agreed  that  a
mandate should be prepared for the activity to be included in the 2005/6 Work Programme. In addition to the discussions
on  the  WFD  implementation,  progress  was  noted  on  a  number  of  other  issues  including  the  Marine  Strategy,  flood
protection, climate change and water policy and quantitative aspects of water management.

The next meeting will be held in Amsterdam under the Dutch Presidency in December 2004.

News on the Water Framework Directive - Legal Transposition
Three  years  after  the  entry  into  force  of  the  Water  Framework  Directive,  the  Member  States  were  required  to
incorporate the requirements of the Directive into their national legislation. Out of the 15 former Member States, five
(AT, DK, EL, ES, IE) have notified the legal instruments to transpose the Water Framework Directive in time, i.e. by
22 December 2003. In addition, Germany and Belgium had partially transposed the Directive. Germany has adopted
national framework legislation but adoption of specific legislation in the 16 Federal States (“Länder”) needs to be
completed. Only some “Länder” have finalised that process yet. In Belgium, first the Flemish Region and later the
Wallone Region have transposed the WFD, the Brussels Region is still working on the transposition. From January
to June, UK (with the exception for Gibraltar), Sweden and France have notified their legal transposition. Thus, by
the end of May, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal had not notified any information on the
transposition. The 10 new Member States had to notify the completion of the legal transposition by the 1st May 2004.
Eight of these 10 Member States had notified the completion of this process to the Commission by the accession
date.  Malta  and  Slovak  Republic  were  the  only  two  new  Member  States  which  had  not  done  so.  Both  countries
confirmed that the transposition is completed, however formal notification to the Commission was still pending. This
is expected to happen shortly. Consequently, in July the Commission took legal action against those Member States
which had not completed their transposition. For further information see Press Release IP/04/870 of 8 July 2004:
h t t p : / / e u r o p a . e u . i n t / r a p i d / p r e s s R e l e a s e s A c t i o n . d o ? r e f e r e n c e = I P / 0 4 /
870&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

water

The Pilot River Basin Network:
In  the  previous  editions  of  the  WFD  Newsletter  the  Pilot  River  Basin  Network  was  introduced  and
three pilot basins (Moselle-Saar, Tevere and Odense) were presented. In this edition of the newsletter
we provide further details on three more of the pilot river basins: Scheldt; Jucar; and Oulujoki. More
information on the pilot river basin exercise is available on the Platform for Information Exchange of
the Joint Research Centre under:
http://viso.ei.jrc.it/wfd_prb/index.html

The  Scheldt  river  basin  district  is  the  largest  PRB  and  covers  a  surface  area  of  36  562  km2.  The
Scheldt river basin district is inhabited by 12.6 million people at an average density of 345 inhabitants
per km2 and is heavily industrialised together with agricultural practices. It includes inland and coastal
waters. This basin covers different national and regional territories in France, Belgium (Walloon region,
Brussels Capital region and Flemish region) and the Netherlands. This means that this PRB has to
deal with the additional challenges of an international district. However, a project called Scaldit in the
context of the International Scheldt Commission supported by Interreg IIIB NWE was set up to ensure
the coordination of the WFD implementation. The testing of the CIS Guidance Documents in this river
basin  is  being  conducted  within  the  context  of  the  Scaldit  project.  Several  expert-workshops  have
already been organised by the Scaldit project and recently, a seminar was organised to present the
preliminary results of the project (see homepage: www.scaldit.org for additional information).

For coastal and transitional waters, a common typology has been defined. For fresh surface waters,
this seemed to be impossible and each country/region applied its own typology. However, the criteria
they used are to a high degree comparable and special attention is paid to cross-border water courses.
This led to a provisional identification of 781 water bodies  for rivers, 69 for lakes, 6 for transitional
waters, 7 for coastal waters and 66 for groundwater. However, the number of water bodies for rivers
will probably decrease, as the provisional identification of these water bodies is still being evaluated in
the Flemish region. The evaluation of current chemical and biological status, the pressure and impact
analysis, as well as the economic characterisation are being carried out. By the end of the year, the
results of the transnational characterisation of the river basin district will be made publicly under the
form of a Scaldit report.

The Júcar river basin is located in the east of Spain and covers a surface area of 42 989 km2 . The
basin has a wide range of population density and is inhabited by about 4 360 000 inhabitants with an
additional  influx  of  about  1.4  million  people  during  the  summer.  The  basin  district  is  made  of four
different, autonomous, communities: Valencia Community; Castilla-La-Mancha; Aragón and Cataluña.
The basin is very diverse in climatic regions and reliefs and has regular drought and floods episodes.
The equilibrium balance between water supply and demand is fragile. There are three main rivers and
a  large  number  of  lakes  and  wetlands  within  the  basin.  The  Júcar  RBD  is  run  by  a  committee  of
competent authorties including the Júcar River Basin Authority.
Additional information (mainly in Spanish) can be found on http://www.chj.es.

The Júcar PRB exercise started in 2002, all the CIS Guidance Documents are being tested and much
of the information fulfilling the requirements of Article 5 of the WFD has been collected and analysed.
An important part of the work has been the nationwide GIS model. Characterisation of surface and
groundwater  bodies  and  the  analysis  of  pressures  and  impacts  is  underway.  The  Júcar  PRB  is
collaborating on testing and improving the methodologies developed for defining ecotypes.

The Oulujoki river basin is situated in Northern Finland and covers a surface area of 22 841 km2. It is
one of the largest river basins in Finland. Three partners are involved in the PRB exercice: the Finnish
Environment  Instittue  (SYKE);  the  Regional  Environmental  Centre  of  North  Ostrobothnia  Regional
and  Kainuu;  and  Northern  Environmental  Research  network  (NorNet).  The  river  system  in  upper
reaches is characterised by chains of short river stretches and lakes.

The basin is sparsely populated by 226 000 inhabitants at an average density of 11.5 inh/km2 with the
population concentrated in the western part of the basin.  Forestry dominates the land use in the river
basin district whilst 3% is cover by agriculture in the lower part of the basin having a major impact on
water quality. A large pulp and paper mill is located within the basin. The flow of the river Oulujoki has
been regulated since 1940’s mostly for hydropower production.

The  preliminary  water  bodies  of  Oulujoki  river  basin  have  been  delineated  using  three  important
databases. About  587  preliminary  water  bodies  have  been  identified  so  far  for  surface  waters:  85
rivers and 502 lakes and about 210 bodies for ground water.

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Upcoming meetings*

(SCG: Strategic Co-ordination Group; EAF: Expert Advisory Forum)

Working Group 2A (Ecostat)

7 - 8 October 2004

Workshop on Groundwater Chemical Status and Trends (WG 2C) 18 October 2004
18 October 2004

Working Group 2D (Reporting)

Workshop “from initial characterisation to RBMP” (WG 2B)

Ispra

Brussels
Brussels

Paris

Brussels

Brussels

21 - 22 October 2004

27-28 October 2004

15 November 2004

SCG and WFD Committee

GIS Expert Group

* Unless otherwise indicated, all meetings are by invitation only

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is legal transposition of a Directive?
As  a  legal  instrument,  Directives  adopted  by  the  European  Community  bind  the  Member
States as to the results to be achieved. They have to be transposed into the national legal
framework, usually within two or three years, and thus leave a margin for manoeuvre as to the
form and means of implementation. Only after this “legal transposition” can a Directive come
into effect and thus unfold its full legal power. In the case of the Water Framework Directive,
the deadline for transposition was the 22 December 2003.

What kind of infringement procedures exist in relation to EU Law?
Following the legal transposition, the Member States must notify the relevant legal instruments
to the European Commission. If Member States fail to do so in time, the Commission can start
a so-called “non-communication” case. There are two other types of infringement cases, the
“non-conformity”  and  the  “bad  application”  cases.  The  legal  basis  and  the  procedures  for
infringement cases are laid down in the Article 226 and Article 228 of the Treaty establishing
the European Community (or the Nice Treaty), see:
http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/nice_treaty/index_en.htm

Key people in the WFD: the Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG)

The Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG) co-ordinates the different working groups and
activities under the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS). The SCG evaluates the
outcome of the different working groups, prepares documents and reports for the Water
Directors’  meetings  and  gives  guidance  to  the  key  activities.  It  is  chaired  by  the
Commission and is formed by participants of all 25 Member States and Norway.

Participants  of  Candidate  Countries  are
invited to participate as observers, NGO’s
and stakeholders may apply for observer
status in accordance with certain criteria.
Currently,  12  business,  2  environmental
and  8  other  organisations  including  the
European  Environment  Agency  are
participating in the SCG. The chairmen of
the  working  groups  of  the  key  activities
participate in meetings of the Strategic Co-
ordination  Group  where  relevant  to  the
agenda.

The picture above  shows the participants of the SCG meeting of 15 March 2004. If you want to
find out more about the SCG, please contact the WFD CIRCA Helpdesk.

European Commission

For more information:
 http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/water/
E-mail: env-wfd-circa@cec.eu.int

WFD Newsletter Editor: Joachim D’Eugenio (European Commission, DG Environment, Unit D.2)

A great deal of information on the European Union is available on the Internet.
It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int).

© European Communities, 2004
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.