1. 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

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

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

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

10. 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

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

12. 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?

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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