COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE FITNESS CHECK of the Water Framework Directive, Groundwater Directive, Environmental Quality Standards Directive and Floods Directive Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy Directive 2006/118/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of groundwater against pollution and deterioration Directive 2008/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on environmental quality standards in the field of water policy, amending and subsequently repealing Council Directives 82/176/EEC, 83/513/EEC, 84/156/EEC, 84/491/EEC, 86/280/EEC and amending Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks
Date: 2019-12-10
Institutions: Directorate-General for Environment, European Commission
Subjects: environmental risk prevention, environmental standard, flood, groundwater, pollution control measures, surface water, water management, water pollution, water protection, water resources

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 10.12.2019  SWD(2019) 440 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE FITNESS CHECK of the Water Framework Directive, Groundwater Directive, Environmental Quality Standards Directive and Floods Directive Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy                      Directive 2006/118/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of groundwater against pollution and deterioration              Directive 2008/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on environmental quality standards in the field of water policy, amending and subsequently repealing Council Directives 82/176/EEC, 83/513/EEC, 84/156/EEC, 84/491/EEC, 86/280/EEC and amending Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council                     Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks {SEC(2019) 438 final} - {SWD(2019) 439 final}  
 
 
Executive summary 

This fitness check is a comprehensive policy evaluation of the following directives:  

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the Water Framework Directive (WFD);  
the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD);  
the Groundwater Directive (GWD);  
the Floods Directive (FD).  

It  assesses  whether  the  Directives  are  fit  for  purpose  by  examining  their  performance  against 
five  criteria  set  out  in  the  Commission’s  Better  Regulation  agenda:  effectiveness,  efficiency, 
coherence, relevance and EU added value. 
The  results  for  the  Water  Framework  Directive,  complemented  by  the  Environmental  Quality 
Standards Directive and the Groundwater Directive, are mixed. On the one hand, the WFD has 
been successful in setting up a governance framework for integrated water management for the 
more than 110,000 water bodies in the EU, slowing down the deterioration of water status and 
reducing (mainly point source) chemical pollution. On the other hand, no substantial progress in 
water  bodies’  overall  status  has  been  made  between  the  first  and  the  second  river  basin 
management  cycles.  The  Directive’s  implementation  has  been  significantly  delayed  and  less 
than half of the EU’s water bodies are in good status, even though the deadline for achieving 
this was 2015, except for duly justified cases. For the Floods Directive it is too early to draw 
conclusions, as its first implementation cycle only started in 2016, but this fitness check finds 
that the Directive has improved flood risk management. 
Good water management is important for the planet, people and the economy 

Water is an essential societal need. The objectives of the Directives are as relevant now as they 
were at the time of the adoption of the Directives, if not more. They contribute to achieving a 
range of sustainable development goals. Water is also of great value in the EU economy. The 
EU’s  water-dependent  sectors  generate  €3.4  trillion,  or  26%  of  the  EU’s  annual  gross  value 
added, and employ around 44 million  people. EU  water policy is  very important  to  European 
citizens.  The  public  consultation  received  more  than  370,000  responses  in  total,  which  is  an 
exceptionally high number.  
Factors that have contributed to and stood in the way of achieving progress 

Factors that have contributed to the effectiveness of the Directives in progressing towards their 
objectives include:  

the list of priority substances;  
the (binding) cross-references to the WFD’s objectives in other EU policies;  

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-  EU funding;  
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the widely applicable non-deterioration principle; and  
the Directives’ monitoring requirements.  

One  of  the  factors  that  hindered  the  achievement  of  better  results  was  the  fact  that  it  proved 
more difficult than envisaged to establish a governance framework that takes into account the 
specific  conditions  in  each  Member  State.  In  addition,  good  status  depends  not  only  on 
mitigation  measures  to  address  current  pressures,  but  also  on  restoration  measures  to  address 
pressures from the past, such as hydromorphological changes and chemical pollution. Finally, 
good status of water bodies also critically depends on the full implementation of other pieces of 
EU legislation, such as the Nitrates Directive and the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, 
as well as better integration of water objectives in other policy areas such as agriculture, energy 
or transport. This has not happened yet at the scale necessary.  
Lack of financial resources is another factor that stands in the way of achieving better results. 
The measures proposed by Member States are often determined by what can be delivered with 

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the budgets and policies already in place, rather than being the result of an integrated approach. 
Member  States  tend  to  rely  on  easy  technological  fixes  that  address  point  source  pollution, 
while  leaving  diffuse  sources  of  pollution  largely  unaddressed.  This  leads  to  ineffective 
implementation, because the approach taken is not based on the pressures and impacts analysis 
and  monitoring  data,  which  would  help  Member  States  determine  what  action  is  needed  to 
target the pressures on water bodies and determine the scale of the action needed. For the Water 
Framework Directive, studies on the value of ecosystem services  and the restoration of  rivers 
indicate  that:  (i)  the  benefits  of  measures  to  improve  the  status  of  water  bodies  outweigh  the 
costs; and (ii) citizens’ willingness to pay exceeds the current expenditure on water measures. 
Insufficient  use  is  being  made  of  the  principle  of  cost  recovery,  while  exemptions  based  on 
disproportionate  costs  are  not  always  adequately  justified.  For  the  Floods  Directive,  studies 
show that the cost/benefit ratio of flood protection measures is positive. 
There is a trade-off between enabling location-specific water management and enforceability  

The  analysis  in  this  fitness  check  finds  that  there  is  a  trade-off  between  the  flexibility  of  the 
Directives,  which  is  needed  to  enable  Member  States  to  implement  the  most  cost-effective 
measures,  and  the  complexity  that  this  flexibility  creates,  which  forms  an  impediment  to 
enforceability and achieving better results.  
Many  of  the  pressures  on  water,  and  the  measures  required  to  mitigate  them,  are  location-
specific. This  is  why, in  line with  the principle  of subsidiarity, the Directives covered by this 
fitness  check  have  introduced  an  integrated  water  management  approach  which  leaves 
considerable discretion to the Member States to identify location-specific measures to meet the 
objectives, while at the same time ensuring sufficient harmonisation and a level playing field. 
At the same time, many water issues are transboundary: all Member States, except Malta and 
Cyprus, share international river basins, meaning that changes in one Member State can have an 
impact on hydrology or water quality in other Member States.  
The complexity of the Water Framework Directive is a consequence of the need for location-
specific  measures.  In  practice,  however,  this  is  found  to  be  a  factor  that  stands  in  the  way  of 
enforceability and of holding Member States accountable for the insufficient ambition of their 
water policy. The extensive requirements for the river basin management plans and for public 
consultation are necessary to keep the policy discretion provided for by the WFD in check and 
provide public transparency about water policy and actions. There is no evidence of excessive 
administrative  burden  in  terms  of  monitoring  and  reporting  requirements.  Having  said  that, 
citizens,  Member  State  representatives,  environmental  groups  and  the  water  sector  have 
indicated that there is room for improvement, both in the accessibility of information and in the 
level  of  detail.  Efforts  are  being  made  to  address  these  issues,  to  simplify  the  reporting 
requirements and to lower the administrative burden, for example through improved electronic 
reporting.  
Contrary  to  traditional  command-and-control  approaches,  the  Water  Framework  Directive’s 
innovation  was  to  put  the  needs  of  a  healthy  ecosystem  as  the  objective  to  be  reached  and 
requires  doing what  is  necessary cost-effectively across all sectors  and pressures  to  reach this 
objective.  The  WFD’s  governance  mechanism  is  therefore  designed  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
enables Member States to bring together all the relevant knowledge, based on monitoring and 
stakeholder participation, to set up management plans based on river basins and to collaborate 
across borders. One key achievement is that this has significantly increased the knowledge base 
about the EU’s aquatic ecosystems, which is also used to inform other policies. The monitoring 
of trends of certain pollutants has, for the first time, provided Member States with the necessary 
information to manage the presence in the water environment of pollutants which are not or no 
longer authorised, e.g. from illegal use or from run-off.  
In sum: the Directives are fit for purpose, with some scope to improve 

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The  analysis  of  the  evidence  and  the  stakeholder  feedback  allow  for  the  conclusion  that  the 
Directives are largely fit for purpose. The Directives have led to a higher level of protection for 
water bodies and flood risk management than could have been expected without them. The fact 
that the WFD’s objectives have not been reached fully yet is largely due to insufficient funding, 
slow  implementation  and  insufficient  integration  of  environmental  objectives  in  sectoral 
policies, and not due to a deficiency in the legislation.  
Future outlook — lessons learned 

Based on the findings, progress towards good status can be expected to be slow but steady. The 
slow  rate  of  progress  can  be  attributed  to  the  factors  outlined  above,  in  addition  to  long  time 
lags for nature to respond to measures. It is also more difficult to make progress visible due to 
the  ‘one-out-all-out’  principle  underpinning  comprehensive  protection  of  water  bodies  and 
ecosystems,  under  which  good  status  is  not  granted  if  any  of  the  relevant  parameters  are  less 
than good. As for future challenges, this fitness check finds that the Water Framework Directive 
is sufficiently prescriptive with regard to the pressures to be addressed, and yet flexible enough 
to reinforce its implementation as necessary with regard to emerging challenges not mentioned 
in the Directive such as climate change, water scarcity and pollutants of emerging concern (e.g. 
micro-plastics and pharmaceuticals). 
The  key  area  where  there  is  room  to  improve  and  to  achieve  better  results  is  on  chemicals. 
While there is evidence that the WFD, EQSD and GWD have led to reduced chemical pollution 
of the EU’s waters, the analysis points to three areas in which the current legislative framework 
is sub-optimal:  

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the differences between the Member States are much larger than what can be explained 
by  national  differences  (variability  in  lists  of  local  pollutants  (river  basin-specific 
pollutants and pollutants posing a risk to groundwater bodies) and the limit values they 
should not exceed);  

-  updating  the  list  of  priority  substances  (i.e.  adding  or  removing  substances  and  the 
corresponding  quality  standards)  is  a  lengthy  process,  partly  because  it  takes  time  to 
gather  the  necessary  scientific  evidence  and  partly  because  of  the  ordinary  legislative 
procedure;  
the EQSD and GWD evaluate the risk to people and the environment based mainly on 
single  substances,  not  taking  into  account  the  combined  effects  of  mixtures,  and 
inevitably cover only a tiny proportion of the substances present in the environment.  

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The  next  round  of  programmes  of  measures  will  play  a  key  role  in  ensuring  the  necessary 
progress  towards  achieving  the  environmental  objectives  by  the  2027  deadline.  Given  that 
currently more than half of all European water bodies are under exemptions, the challenges for 
Member  States  are  more  than  substantial.  After  2027,  the  possibilities  for  exemptions  are 
reduced,  as  time  extensions  under  Article  4(4)  can  only  be  authorised  in  cases  where  all  the 
measures have been put in place but the natural conditions are such that the objectives cannot be 
achieved by 2027. The Commission will need to continue to work with Member States and help 
them improve implementation of the Directives at the lowest possible cost, e.g. by sharing best 
practices on cost recovery, reduction of pollutants at source, green infrastructure and others.  

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