1. Assessment of WFD River Basin Management Plans State of Play
SCG
23 February 2010
Jorge Rodriguez, Ursula Schmedtje, Marieke van Nood
WFD Team
DG Environment, European Commission

2. What was it about?
Commission prepares assessment report of RBMP (Art. 18) by 2012
2012 report will be linked to:
Review of strategy on Water Scarcity and Droughts
EU Adaptation Policy – next phase
-> EU BLUEPRINT FOR WATER POLICY

3. EC concept paper on the assessment of RBMPs
Developed as a first step for assessment templates
Discussed with Water Directors in November 2009
Written comments received from AT, DE, FR, NL, SK
Contained key questions that intend to guide the assessment of various aspects of RBMPs
Contained questions that need to be elaborated in templates, to be answered by EC (not by Member States)
Contained questions from WFD obligations and ‘nice-to-haves’
After all, final analysis needs to provide strategic conclusions

4. What information will be used in the assessments?
Completeness and screening steps will be mainly based on the WISE electronic delivery
For the in-depth assessment, as the depth of the assessment increases, there will be more need to use the information contained in the RBMPs and any relevant background document
In particular, WISE electronic delivery is not designed to report the most complex methodological aspects of WFD implementation

5. Background documents
WFD and CIS guidance documents require transparency on a number of key elements of RBMP
Level of detail of plans will vary among Member States: in some cases the RBMPs may include sufficient detail, in others they do not
It is not possible to generalise which topics will require which kinds of background documents
One exception is the Programme of Measures, that is a background document in all cases as the plans contain only a summary
It is up to the Member States to judge which background documents are provided to the Commission to be the basis of the RBMP assessment
WISE delivery explicitly requests these documents
Topics that will likely require background documents are HMWB, classification of ecological status, justification of exemptions

6. Assessment tools We are developing 2 main assessment tools – per RBD:
Summaries WISE electronic delivery
Assessment templates

7. Summary of WISE electronic delivery
1 summary per RBD
Extracts information from WISE delivery into a readable format: tables/graphs, methodological (textual) information in original language and machine translation into English
To be used mainly for completeness check and screening
Will be generated automatically in summer 2010 7

8. What’s next After 22 March:
Contact MS in case of unclarities (e.g. on background documents)
Intermediate feedback through CIS Working Group D, Strategic Coordination Group, Water Directors
170 RBMP assessments - > 27 Member State assessments - > page Communication

9. Thank you for your attention