EU Water Framework Directive Legal issues, implementation and compliance checking Strategic Coordination Group Brussels 11 March 2008 Jorge Rodriguez Romero European Commission, DG Environment Unit D.2 – Water and Marine, WFD Team

Update on recent legal action Contents Update on recent legal action Compliance checking concept for article 8 monitoring programmes

Recent developments in non-communication cases Transposition: 228 warnings to LU and IT in 2007 Article 3: ES taken to the Court Article 5: two ECJ rulings against IT (December 2007) and EL (January 2008) Article 8: cases in preparation against EL and MT

Non-conformity of National Implementing Legislation Commission implementation report found major issues in the transposition of 19 Member States Practical problems: delayed transposition means delayed conformity checks; volume of communicated legislation; regional legislation; linguistic. Cases launched recently against 9 Member States: DE, DK, IE, SE, UK, HU, SI, FI, FR Selection of MS has been done on practical grounds, hence no conclusion should be drawn as regards the transposition of these MS in relation to the others Other cases in preparation

State of play reporting of monitoring programmes 26 Member States reported (all but Greece, Malta only groundwaters) 24 Member States reported electronically through WISE !!! (Only MT, RO on paper, BG through WISE two weeks ago) Extensive QA/QC performed by EEA Most problems solved with bilateral contacts with data providers Currently: 51114 groundwater stations 54093 surface water stations

SW SURVEILLANCE Total ~15000 stations SW OPERATIONAL Total ~40000 stations

9,2 Ratio SURVEILLANCE/OPERATIONAL 24 Density SURVEILLANCE / 1000 km2

Steps of compliance checking Report communicated? Start legal procedure No Yes If no completion All parts of reports complete and clear? Clarify with MS No Yes Update and completion Is report compliant for key issues/compliance indicators? Halt assessment Yes No Is report compliant after in-depth assessment? Halt assessment Yes No Decide upon follow up Verify assessment Clarify with MS Start legal procedure

Compliance checking monitoring programmes Non-communication QA/QC (on-going, EEA) Compliance indicators Key issues

Key issues (I) Objectives of monitoring programmes Comprehensiveness Surveillance monitoring Operational monitoring Links to pressure and impact analysis Comprehensiveness Does the report provide information of networks linked to the implementation of water Directives other than WFD, international obligations like river conventions or of voluntary agreements? Is there any indication of international coordination in designing the monitoring networks?

Key issues (II) Status of developments of methods What is the degree of development of the methods to assess ecological status of surface waters? Is there information on the level of confidence achieved by the methods? Selection of quality elements Is surveillance monitoring comprehensive? Selection of quality elements for operational monit. Frequency of monitoring Intensity of monitoring

Monitoring programmes first impressions There are excellent examples! But also wide diversity Diversity of concepts E.g. surveillance vs operational Lack of integration of networks Monitoring effort varies widely Monitoring is cheaper than measures! Assessment methods still under development in many cases

Follow-up compliance checking monitoring programmes Concept paper and template for compliance checking will be presented to the Working Group D Reporting on 31 March - 1 April Compliance checking to be finalised by May-June 2008 Commission article 18 report in autumn 2008

Follow-up legal action Priority: non-conformity of transposition Non-communication monitoring programmes Other possible issues, case by case Bad implementation in new projects (article 4.7) Bad implementation of monitoring programmes – e.g. linked to lack of development of methods Intercalibration Bad implementation of article 5 analysis