DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
ENVIRONMENT
Directorate D – Water, Chemicals & Cohesion
ENV.D2 – Protection of Water and Marine Environment /
Brussels, 28 April 2009
for the WFD Common Implementation Strategy
11 March 2009 from 9:00 to 17:00
in Centre Albert Borschette, Room 2B, Brussels
Meeting Summary
The Commission, DG Environment D.2 (hereafter referred to as COMM) invited delegates for the Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG) meeting of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) on 11 March 2009. The following Member States (MS) participated in the meeting: AT, BE, BG, CY, CZ, DK, DE, EE, EL, ES, FI, FR, HU, IE, IT, LT, LU, NL, SE, SI and UK. In addition, representatives of Norway, CEFIC, COPA/COGECA, ECPA, EEB, EIC-FENACORE, ELO, ESHA, ESPO, EURELECTRIC, EUWMA, EWA, WWF, and the EEA and Commission (DG ENV and JRC) were represented. A full list of meeting participants is provided in Annex 1.
The main objective of the meeting is to continue the work under the Common Implementation Strategy, exchange information on and discuss the progress of the various activities, agree the reporting sheets on economics and start preparations for the upcoming Water Directors meeting to be held in Brno (Czech Republic) in May 2009. In particular, the latest activities developed by the Commission will be discussed, as well as progress achieved under the various activities of the working groups.
A draft revised agenda (see Annex 2) was distributed before the meeting.
The presentations and meeting documents are available on WFD CIRCA under the meeting sub-folder of the folder “D-Strategic Co-ordination Group” in the library using the following direct link: http://circa.europa.eu/Members/irc/env/wfd/library?l=/strategic_ordination/i_meetings_2009/meeting_march_2009&vm=detailed&sb=Title
A summary of the discussions under each point of the agenda and the conclusions are presented below.
1 – Welcome and introduction
The meeting was chaired by Helmut Bloech (HB, DG ENV) who welcomed national delegates, NGOs and other stakeholders. Languages available from the Interpretation Services were English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The meeting was largely concerned with information points except Item 7d on Economic Reporting sheets where there were some open issues to be addressed and agreed under the mandate of the Water Directors. The agenda was rather full for the day so HB kindly asked all participants to be concise in their business so that all agenda items could be covered. A room document was available for Item 8 Emerging Issues - Water and Biodiversity.
2 – Approval of the agenda
HB asked the Group for Items 5i and 8 to de taken immediately after the lunch break and for Item 7d to be taken immediately after Item 4. This was for reasons of availability of COMM staff.
There were no further amendments or comments and the amended agenda was approved by the Group.
3 – Water Directors' meeting preparation
The delegate from CZ informed the Group that the next Water Directors’ meeting would be held in Brno on the 28-29th May, with a pre-meeting in the afternoon of the 27th. The meeting is to be held jointly with the Marine Directors. In April, invitations, agenda and logistical information will be sent to delegates. Buses will be arranged for transportation from Prague and possibly Vienna, to Brno.
The delegate from SE informed the Group that the information was the same as given at the previous SCG meeting. The WD meeting would be held in Malmø 30 Nov-1 Dec 2009, back to back with a meeting of the Marine Directors. More information will be provided in due course.
HB invited any comments or questions from the floor.
There were none.
The Group took note of the dates and arrangements for the Water Directors’ meetings under the Czech and Swedish Presidencies respectively.
4 – Legal issues on WFD implementation including Commission report on monitoring programmes and economics in-depth assessment
Jorge Rodriguez Romero (JRR, DG ENV) presented (see slides on CIRCA) on the COMM report to the European Parliament and MS on MS submissions under Article 8 which will be published (in accordance with Art 18.3 of the WFD) at the time of the EU .Water Conference 2-3 April 2009. JRR gave an overview of the contents of the report which is a COMM report of 6 pages which will be translated into all languages. The main Commission Staff Working Document which is approximately 50 pages is in English only. There are Annexes covering each MS totalling around 180 pages in English only.
JRR thanked MS for their feedback on the draft documents during consultation. The main conclusions were that all MS have reported except GR (no report) and MT (no report on surface waters). Most (24) MS have reported electronically though WISE. Some examples of the indicators were shown and JRR explained that the numbers should not be used blindly for comparing between MS but needed careful interpretation. JRR went through the main conclusions and on the positive side, overall, there is good monitoring effort across the EU (>107,000 stations for surface and groundwater) and frequency of monitoring is often higher than the minimum required under the Directive. However, improvements are needed on the quality of reporting; there are gaps in the reporting of methodologies and in the levels of confidence. Also, the report evidences the gaps in the development of assessment methods for ecological status in many Member States.
HB invited any comments or questions from the floor.
The delegate from DE asked how will the COMM report be presented at the Conference?
JRR stated that it will not be extensively presented at the Conference which focuses mostly on RBMP and Public Participation. There may be some information from the report in some COMM presentations. The report needs detailed consideration and this will best be done in the Reporting and other WG of the CIS.
Anita Payne (AP, DG ENV) gave a presentation (see slides on CIRCA) on the results of the in-depth assessment of the WFD Art 5 reports on economic analysis. This was done by a consortium of consultants. It was a large, complex task with a number of methodological challenges. The scope of the assessment and the limitations and lessons learned were described to the Group. The next steps are to invite written comments from the Group and possibly hold a workshop to discuss WFD economics. Written comments on the proposed workshop (timing, objectives etc) were particularly welcome. The assessment of the national part of Article 5 on Economic Analysis will be sent by the Commission, if requested by the Member State. AP also informed the Group that COMM had launched a study on water pricing based on the available draft RBMP (dRBMP). This would be done by consultants (Entec) who would approach MS for information on COMM’s behalf if no information was available on article 9 in dRBMPs.. In terms of outputs, a report will be made and it would feed into the proposed 2010 workshop on WFD economics. AP stressed that this was not a compliance check of the dRBMP.
HB invited any comments or questions from the floor.
The delegate from UK welcomed the proposal for a workshop, but thought it should be next year (2010) after the RBMP have been finished and reported. This was supported by delegates from AT, DE, DK and NL, the latter delegate stressing that intensive preparation was needed beforehand.
The delegate from SE favoured an earlier workshop as SE needed assistance in terms of examples of good practice. A Regional meeting in August in conjunction with World Water Week meeting in Stockholm could be a possibility for this to take place.
The delegate from NL asked for confirmation (and deadline) for submitting written comments on the assessment. Workshop should be in the longer time scale.
The delegate from DK had a list of issues to be discussed: MS have different approaches on the definition of costs and how to calculate them; reducing uncertainty in environmental and resource costs; how PPP is applied especially in the agriculture sector; develop of guidelines for baseline scenarios.
The representative of the WWF asked if there was a more detailed paper available, and if things could be changed in the first RBMP because improvement is needed? He supported the call from SE for an earlier workshop.
HB: concluded that there was general agreement on a workshop in 2010 because of the pressure on MS resources at present and the workshop should build on the final versions of the RBMP.
HB asked for agreement of the Group and this was given.
HB asked for agreement of the Group to send written comments to COMM by mid-April and this was agreed.
HB turned to the issue of scope for improving the RBMP in their current phase and asked for the Group’s views.
The delegate from AT said there was no possibility of changing the present RBMP because of legal issues in AT.
The delegate from DE stated that they had commissioned more studies on how to do this. If more new issues are brought forward it was hardly feasible to see how they could be dealt with.
The delegate from ES stated that ES was going to improve work on Art 5 economics but there were some resource issues. If the COMM could issue a more detailed report (as the representative of WWF had requested) ES would welcome this. The delegate from DE supported this.
The delegate from NL was happy with their integration of economics into the RBMP and saw no scope to do extra work or make last minute improvements.
JRR responded to these points for the COMM. On the extra information – COMM thought the overall summary would be all that should be provided. The information is from 2004 and there have been many developments since then in MS. COMM does not want to cause confusion with old information when we have newer information in the dRBMP which should be the basis for a more thorough discussion. However, COMM is happy to discuss bilaterally with MS the results of the assessment of their Art.5 economic analysis.
AP added that a pre-workshop report based on the dRBMP could be the best way of dealing with this as progress made since 2004 could then be assessed.
HB concluded on this item stating that additional information to improve RBMP this year does not seem to be feasible. The ongoing consultation on the dRBMP gives an opportunity for improvement.
This was agreed by the Group.
7d) WG D – (Item moved to allow for to availability of COMM staff)
7dii) Economic reporting sheets
AP (DG ENV) gave a presentation (see slides on CIRCA) on the Economic Reporting sheets. There were two open issues identified by the WD who had mandated the SCG to resolve them on their behalf:
Issue 1: The Reporting sheets should not prejudice any developments on the infringement procedures linked to the definition of water services.
Issue 2: The request for information on international cooperation on economic analysis in international river basins should be discussed further and clarified.
On Issue 1, a disclaimer had been added to the Reporting sheets.
On Issue 2, COMM had agreed that there is a need to separate the discussion on implementation from reporting of transboundary cooperation on economic analysis and proposed that further discussion should be undertaken as part of the wider discussions on WFD water economics.
No substantive comments had been received from MS on the open issues and some additional drafting changes had been made to take account of other comments. The disclaimer is therefore acceptable to MS, and the redrafting of the sheets deals with the second issue. The next steps would be to invite SCG to endorse the sheets and to agree to build them into the RBMP electronic schema
HB invited any comments or questions from the floor.
There were none
HB asked the Group for their endorsement of the Reporting Sheets as presented and the Group’s agreement to proceed with their technical implementation in the RBMP schema.
There were no objections, therefore the Group endorsed the Reporting Sheets as mandated by the Water Directors.
5 – Commission Activities
5a) CAP Health Check
Noemie Beigbeder (NB, DG AGRI) gave a presentation (see slides on CIRCA) which focused on the water aspects of the CAP Health Check following the reform of the CAP in 2003.
The main points were:
· Water management is regarded as one of the important points to be considered by farmers in their choice of agricultural management.
· Cross-compliance: Buffer strips along water courses are important and compulsory standards in the GAEC (good agricultural and environmental conditions); MS have a certain degree of flexibility to adapt to specific regional characteristics. Buffer strips should be implemented by January 2012 latest.
· On Rural Development Measures there was an increase in modulation (shifting funds from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2 in CAP (i.e. towards rural development) with the aim of making additional funds available for measures oriented towards environmental issues.