Our Publications

While EurEau welcomes the Commission’s action to address the condition of soils, we regret the lower ambition shown by the proposed Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience compared to the abandoned project of a Soil Health Law. The monitoring rules laid down in the proposal are necessary but not sufficient. They should be accompanied by binding rules to protect and regenerate healthy soils. The Directive should incorporate stronger links with surface- and groundwater quality, as well as Circular Economy goals. Strong action for healthy soils is paramount for both drinking- and wastewater operators.

EurEau supports the Drinking Water Directive’s (DWD) goal of reducing water leakage, but emphasises the need for reliable data to underpin this effort. As the first step towards leakage reduction plans will involve calculating a Union average leakage rate, Member States must include the same index in their reporting. This index should be based on volumetric units so that all drinking water operators can easily implement it within the DWD timeframe.

The revision of this Regulation offers the possibility to adjust the requirements for detergents. In the view of drinking water and wastewater operators, the Commission’s proposal clearly lacks ambition and major environmental impacts are not sufficiently addressed.

The new Regulation should respond to the EU’s Zero Pollution ambition by strengthening the biodegradability requirements for all ingredients, including surfactants, avoiding the risk of microplastics generation, ensuring the safe use of microorganisms and reducing the release of phosphorous into the sewer network while strengthening phosphorous recycling.

EurEau supports the Commission’s approach to promoting environmental protection coupled with access to medicines. While the proposal offers long-overdue advances in controlling pollution from pharmaceuticals at the source, it must go further in curbing excessive use of over-the-counter medicines, take into account risks posed by metabolites and transformation products, and provide further transparency for environmental risk assessments.

On 23 February 2023, the European Commission presented its proposal for a Regulation for measures to reduce the cost of deploying gigabit electronic communications networks (gigabit infrastructure act, GIA). This proposal aims at facilitating the deployment of broadband infrastructure in line with the 2030 digital compass and the digital decade policy programme.

The expansion of high-performance networks for electronic communication is very important for the water sector. EurEau welcomes that drinking water infrastructure is exempt from the scope of the Regulation. The EU institutions should also take into account the special status of critical infrastructures when it comes to access to physical infrastructures and related data.

Directive 2022/0344 amends the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its two daughter directives, the Groundwater Directive (GWD) and the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD).

The proposal adds pesticides, pharmaceuticals and PFAS to the priority substances lists for surface water and groundwater, and sets more flexible procedures to update Environmental Quality Standards (EQS).

EurEau welcomes the enlargement of the EQS lists as a prerequisite to providing safe and affordable drinking water services to consumers and as an effective means of protecting the environment.

If EQS are exceeded, the EU and Member States are obliged to take action to curb the emissions. EurEau requests that, in line with Article 191.2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), any exceedance of EQS should primarily trigger control-at-source measures.

EurEau welcomes the European Commission’s Proposal for a Directive concerning urban wastewater treatment (recast) as its more ambitious objectives will align better with the overarching UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal while enhancing the governance of the wastewater sector and people’s access to sanitation. Reaching the new goals and requirements as set out in the Proposal will require mainstreaming control at source, significant investments and time.
The purpose of this position paper is to identify the key topics within the Proposal which EurEau members see as the agenda to take forward through the
amendments process, aiming at enabling an effective and efficient implementation and achievement of the Proposal’s objectives.

EurEau supports major parts of the proposed Regulation, but calls for more clarity regarding ‘off-site transfer’ management. Easy access to data is paramount to facilitate the risk management of waste water operators.

Waste water treatment plants (WWTP) larger than 100,000 PE are covered by the Regulation as it was for the E-PRTR and the list of pollutants did not change. Some provisions are added regarding diffuse pollution, which is positive, but more details are needed in order for the Regulation to be correctly applied.

We welcome the legislative proposal of the Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (SUR), enshrining the European Commission’s Zero Pollution ambition in pesticides policy to protect human health and the environment. 

This legislative proposal heralds good news for water operators: water suppliers need water resources that are protected from pollution so that tap water remains safe and affordable, and the right to water is not jeopardised.

While the legislative proposal represents a major step in the right direction, we urge the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to embrace the change and support a European food system that protects water resources.

We regret, however, that Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 on placing pesticides on the EU market will not be revised, since this legislation is key to restricting harmful pesticides. It must be ensured that only those substances that have no detrimental effects on human health, the environment, and more specifically, drinking water production, are allowed for use. This is not the case today. Furthermore, more attention should be paid to the possible combination effects of substances and regrettable substitutions of substances.

The proposed text meets most of the water service providers’ expectations by correcting some drawbacks of the current directive regarding the protection of water bodies. EurEau supports the general philosophy, aligned with the zero-pollution ambition, to control industrial pollution at the source. Overall, we find the Commission’s proposal goes in a very positive direction and we look forward to working with the EU institutions to make the IED an effective and robust force in protecting the environment, human health, water resources and water services’ workers.