The European Commission has taken legal action against the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia for failing to comply with the Water Framework Directive.
It issued letters of formal notice to the three member states for not meeting a programme of measures for each river basin district in their respective countries to ensure good status of European water bodies.
These measures must be included in river basin management plans which must be established and reported to the European Commission every six years.
The plans must detail measures to control different types of water abstraction, impoundment, point source discharge, diffuse sources liable to cause pollution and any other significant adverse impacts on water quality.
Water quality
The commission has noted that in the Netherlands permits for abstraction of water or discharges into water may be granted for “an unlimited duration and no periodic review is required”.
“In addition, where authorisations are given under general rules, there is no periodic review either,” it added.
Separately in Austria, the European Commission found that an assessment is performed before an extension or an issuance of a new permit, which can correspond “to a period of 25 years for abstractions for irrigation and up to 90 years for other purposes”.
It said: “This period is too long to fulfil the purpose of a periodic review, and therefore does not achieve the objectives of the directive”.
Meanwhile in Slovenia according to the commission national law “does not provide clear rules” for periodic reviews of permits or concessions for abstraction of water or of prior authorisations for point source discharges and of generally applicable rules for diffuse discharge.
The European Commission said it had sent “letters of formal notice” to the Netherlands, Austria and Slovenia, which now have two months to respond and address the shortcomings it has identified.
Ireland
Scrutiny of member states’ compliance with the Water Framework Directive by the European Commission comes as a High Court judge this week referred a legal challenge launched by An Taisce against the State’s fifth Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Justice Humphreys stated that An Taisce’s legal action “is a challenge to the validity of domestic and European measures relating to the derogation for the use of nitrates above and beyond standard levels”.
He intends to refer nine key questions raised during the legal challenge to the CJEU.
According to An Taisce “radical change is now necessary in the management of nutrient inputs to agricultural land” to comply with EU Directives on water quality which includes the Nitrates and Water Framework Directives.