1. WG 2.B Integrated River Basin Management
Progress Report
Strategic and Coordination Group Meeting
Brussels 27th 28th May 2004

2. WG 2B Main activities Economics (2 Drafting Groups)
Pilot River Basins Exercise
Preparation of River Basin Management plans and Program of Measures

3. Economic Activities Integration of economics in horizontal issues
It has finished its activities
Addressing Methodological Economic Issues
Focussed in defining environmental and resource costs and associated methods of evaluation.

4. Pilot River Basin Exercise
Work focussed in the reporting commitments included in Article 5
A huge work has been done by some PRBs
Pilot River Basin Outcome report is presented at this SCG
Discussion about the so called Phase 2 ( follow up of the activities of the group in 2005/2006)

5. Discussions in the plenary meeting of the WG in Madrid (22/23 April)
River Basin Programmes of measures under the WFD Common Implementation Strategy
In the last SCG (15 March) an “Activity sheet” proposing a work programme was proposed.MS did not reach a clear consensus on it.
Discussions in the plenary meeting of the WG in Madrid (22/23 April)
A document defining the scope of the activity was drafted.
The document has been circulated to the members of the group and it is now presented to this SCG.
Key role of on going research activities.

6. Meetings (Since last SCG, 15 March)

7. FURTHER STEPS
Tentatively, next plenary meeting of WG 2B will be in Brussels or Paris, November 2004.
Eco 2 will produce a draft report to be circulated among the members of the WG. Final report is expected to be presented in the Amsterdam WD meeting.
After conclusions of Dublin WD meeting, PoMs tentatively will start its activities
The WG has decided to create a specific “strategic group” in charge of identifying next relevant working priorities.

8. FURTHER STEPS
The plenary meeting agrees in stressing that the WG 2B has an important role to be played under the CIS in the near future with the following building blocks for its activities:
Being the platform for integration knowledge on the Water Framework Directive (WFD)
Being the platform for communication with the research community
Acting as the “memory” for WFD implementation