WFD River Basin Management Plans : Consultation and adoption process Maria Brättemark, WFD Team, DG ENV.D.1, European Commission

Consultations on draft River Basin Management Plans Directive timetable : start at the latest 22.12.2008, run for 6 months Serious delays in consultations in some Member States - knock-on effect on the RBMP deadline 22.12.2009… Expect legal challenges if requirements on public consultation not respected… 2

State of play November 2009 On time? Member States finished: AT, BG, CZ, DE, FI, FR, IE, LU, LV, NL, PL, RO, SK, SW, UK + NO Member States consultations still ongoing : EE, HU, IT, LT. Partial consultation : BE (1 out of 4), ES (23 out of 24) not started ! Not yet started ! DK, EL, MT, PT, SI ! CY (Feb-Sep 2010) (Updates received just before SCG from AT,CY, EE, EL, FI, HU, LT, NL, RO, SW). This Conference is held in the middle of the consultation period foreseen in the WFD for the draft river basin management plans, that should have been published by 22 December 2008. 16 countries have published their draft plans to date, 3 more for some RBDs only. 9 countries have not published the draft plans yet. According to the survey made by the consultants, draft plans published in HU, RO and SK show important gaps and are incomplete on important aspects. Some like HU indicate the intention to publish a more complete draft plan later on.

National consultations Information on dates of consultations Where to find the information on the national Websites How to get involved Where : water.europa.eu/participate Next : Complete with information on finalised RBMP ! 4

2nd European Water Conference 2-3 April 2009, Brussels. Focus : dRBMP consultations Summary (informal) findings in draft RBMP – conference document ! Report available in EN, and summaries in all EU languages. Posters and postcards available on webpage : water.europa.eu/participate 5