Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management
Programme: CARDS 2004
Partner country: Croatia
Area of Cooperation: Environment and Natural Resources
CARDS TWINNING PROJECT FICHE
Title of the Project: Capacity Building and Development of Guidelines for the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive
Project budget: € 1.200.000
1. BASIC INFORMATION
1.1. Twinning Number HR 04 IB EN 01
1.2. Title Capacity Building and Development of Guidelines for the Implementation of the WFD
1.3. Location Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of the Republic of Croatia
2. OBJECTIVES
2.1. Overall Objective
The overall objective of this project is to improve the water quality standards and water management in Croatia in line with EU standards and requirements and to further strengthen the institutional and administrative capacity of the Croatian water management administration as well as relevant state institutions, stakeholders and NGO’s.
2.2. Project purpose
- Further harmonisation of Water Management legislation with the EU water Acquis,
- Common approach and institutional support to the WFD implementation in Croatia,
- Improved communication among relevant stakeholders, ie. governmental bodies & state institutions, private companies and NGO’s,
- Strenghtened institutional capacity,
2.3. European Partnership and National Plan for the Integration in the European Union (NPIEU) priority
European partnership
Proposed project directly supports the short-term (“Clearly define responsibilities and strengthen the administrative and operational capacity at national and regional level to ensure planning, including preparation of financial strategies”, “Continue to strengthen the capacity of national and regional inspection services and enable them to effectively enforce environmental legislation.”) and medium-term priorities (“Ensure the integration of environmental protection requirements into the definition and implementation of other sectoral policies. Develop an environmental investment strategy based on estimations of the costs of alignment….”, and “Continue work on the transposition of the EU acquis, with particular emphasis on waste management, water quality, air quality, nature protection and integrated pollution prevention and control. Increase investment in environmental infrastructure, with particular emphasis on waste water collection and treatment, drinking water supply and waste management”) that have been specified in the Council Decision on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the European Partnership with Croatia in the chapters: Sectoral Policies - Environment.
National Plan for the Integration in the European Union (NPIEU)
The National Program for the Integration of the Republic of Croatia into the European Union (NPIEU) for 2006 highlights that a short-term priority is to continue with harmonization of Croatian legislation with EU acquis and capacity building activities together with ensuring appropriate planning (preparation of financial strategies). In the medium term, it is planned to finish the drafting of legislation, develop the investment strategies and increase investment in environmental infrastructure. As EU Water Framework Directives incorporate in its implementation all other water directives, as well as other environmental directives activities, it is of urgent importance to continue/start more intensively with its implementation.
In addition, the importance of the proposed activities foreseen within this project was also raised during the bilateral screening for Chapter 27 Environment, when it was clearly stated from the EC side that it is expected from Croatia to follow the implementation schedule already defined for all other EU member states.
3. DESCRIPTION
3.1. Background and justification
The Croatian Constitution stresses water issues as one of the priority areas. In January 2001, the Croatian Parliament adopted the National Environmental Strategy (NES) and Action Plan. The NES provides a basis for mainstreaming environment into all sectors and emphasizes the importance of the EU approximation process in the field of environment and the need to provide accurate estimates of implementation costs.
Article 103 of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), identifies water management and continuous approximation of laws and regulations to Community standards among the priority areas of cooperation between the EU Member States and Croatia. Priority 5 of the CARDS Multi-Annual Indicative Programme (MIP) 2002-2004, indicates “contribution to the process of alignment of environmental legislation with acquis and increasing the impact of existing environmental legislation“ as the main objective. It also identifies water quality as a priority area to which technical assistance support will be given to prepare and carry out investment projects.
In the process of EU integration, the Republic of Croatia wishes to harmonize water management practices with EU requirements. The activities conducted so far in the sense of harmonization of the national legislation, finished in the end of 2005, relate to the Amendments of the Water Act and Amendments of the Act on Financing Water Management, by which the national legislation was partially harmonized with the regulations of the WFD. Also, within the preparatory activities for the screening, the Tables of Concordance (ToC) and Implementation Questionnaires (IQ) were completed for 16 relevant water-related directives, but also for most of the directives comprising the Environmental acquis.
Water management in Croatia is mainly under the competence of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management (MAFWM), an autonomous governmental body, and Hrvatske vode (Croatian Waters, CW), which is a water management agency. The present legislative framework also includes state administration bodies and institutes competent for water management issues: Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Construction, Ministry of Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship and related institutions such as the State Hydrological Institute, Institutes for Public Health and others.
However, the process of implementation of the existing water management legislative framework in Croatia is ineffective, especially at the level of local authorities and municipalities. There is a lack of competence among local officials, inadequate division of roles and responsibilities and weak enforcement mechanism in general. These all reflect the need to improve the horizontal and vertical level of cooperation and coordination among the ministries, institutions and municipalities in order to ensure effective fulfilment of the tasks. Also, there is insufficient involvement of stakeholders in stages such as preparation of legislation, strategy development and preparation of investment projects. Roles and responsibilities of all relevant stakeholders for implementation of water management legislation should be clearly defined, as well as the manner of their mutual cooperation. Coordination mechanisms should be improved in order to ensure effective performance of water management tasks and involvement of stakeholders.
In addition, there is also insufficient knowledge on the process of harmonization of the national water management legislation and the relevant EU legislation. The CARDS 2003 project on legal aspect “Approximation of Croatian water management legislation with the EU water acquis" will contribute to the improvement of the situation. Moreover, this CARDS 2004 project is about addressing the issues of present institutional set-up and related ability of supporting the WFD implementation process in Croatia.
The implementation of WFD raises a number of technical challenges for the Member States, European Commission (EC), Candidate Countries and other stakeholders. The Member States, Norway and EC agreed on a Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) for the WFD. The main objective of CIS is to address the challenges in cooperative and coordinated way. The Republic of Croatia has not as yet been adequately included in the activities conducted by other EU Member Countries, thus, during the organization of WFD implementation in Croatia, it is necessary to fully ensure adequate inclusion of the Republic of Croatia into the activities of implementing the Common Implementation Strategy.
However, in Croatia, the process of WFD implementation faces many challenges. The issues already brought up on the European level are present on the national level as well. The process of cooperative and coordinated approach to WFD implementation in Croatia should be set up in order to ensure a uniform approach and support to WFD implementation. The key issues of setting up the WFD implementation process in Croatia are to identify the gaps and needs, set up institutional and legal schedules, find appropriate coordination mechanisms that will include stakeholders, and asses the implications for the implementation of WFD with other strategic sectoral plans (i.e. environment and physical planning, regional policy, agricultural policy, fisheries policy, etc.).
The Water Act of the Republic of Croatia prescribes the development of planning bases for water management. The planning bases for water management are: the Water Management Strategy, Water District Management Plans, and the Water Management Master Plan.
The Water Management Strategy is a planning document which defines the vision, mission, tasks and objectives of the long-term state water management policy. The Water Management Strategy is passed by the Croatian Parliament.
For each water district (the Water Act foresees four water districts), a Water District Management Plan is developed, which has to be harmonized with the Water Management Strategy. It is planned that the Water District Management Plans are fully equivalent to the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) planned within the WFD. The Water District Management Plans are passed by the Government of the Republic of Croatia. The Water Management Master Plan is an executive planning document, on the basis of which the income is collected and expenses paid for the implementation of programmes and other tasks within its scope; this document has to be harmonized with the Water District Management Plans.
The preparation of a national guidance document on specific technical issues is the most difficult issue to address. This guidance document should be developed on the basis of a common understanding and approach to specific issues, with identified tools and models to carry out all the necessary activities. As it is required by WFD and CIS, information sharing is one of the key activities of the implementation process. From the beginning, this process has to have a high level of commitment, involvement of stakeholders and public participation, which will be supported by the proposed CARDS 2004 project.
3.2. Linked activities (other international and national initiatives)
INTERREG III B CADSES project “Ecological structural measures on the Drava River Basin” – project completed
CARDS Regional Project 2003 – “Pilot river basin plan for Sava River Basin” – ongoing project. The project shall provide capacity building to water management institutions and carry out a water management pilot project in each country according to the EU Water Framework Directive in a transboundary context. Coordination with the Regional Programme: capacity-building activities in this project will build on the ones initiated under the Regional project. For guidelines development, lessons will be drawn and fully taken into account on the implementation of the case-study on guidelines for WFD under the Regional project.
CARDS 2003 project ‘’Approximation of Water Management Legislation with the EU Water Acquis’’ will provide complete legal, administrative and institutional assessment and identify regulatory actions for further approximation of national legislation to the EU water acquis through preparation of a draft Strategy and Action Plan for the approximation of Croatian water legislation and conducting horizontal impact assessment on the Nitrates, Drinking Water and Dangerous Substances Directive and UWWTD.
Complementarity with other donors - Added value of EC intervention
Initiatives and programmes in the field of regional cooperation, related to the implementation of international agreements in water management and proposed CARDS 2004 Project:
- Implementation of the Convention on the Protection of the Danube River and the related Danube Regional Project initiated by ICPDR, and financed by the UNDP/GEF – “Preparation of the River Basin Management Plan of the Danube River Basin”,
- Within the Stability Pact, several projects important for integrated water management were initiated, especially on the Sava and Neretva rivers. The Stability pact started the initiative for signing the Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin, under which the project “Preparation of the River Basin Management Plan of the Sava River Basin”, funded by the Government of the Netherlands, is currently being implemented,
- Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands: “Development of a framework for formulation of Regional Water management plans in the Coastal Zones of Croatia”, project completed,
- Integrated Ecosystem Management of the Neretva and Trebišnjica River Basin - proposal for a GEF-funded project under preparation,
Implementation of the proposed CARDS 2004 project will improve Croatian ability to fulfil requirements for implementation of international agreements and will develop national guidelines based on the experience and implementation of different regional initiatives.
Activities originating from the WFD / National / CARDS 2003 / CARDS 2003 Regional / Other fundingTransposition into legislation / X (ongoing)
Identification of River Basin Districts,
Designation of Competent Authorities / Included in the Water management Strategy and amendments of the Water Act
River Basin management Plans / Sava River Basin (ongoing) / UNDP/GEF: Danube River Basin
Dutch bilateral co-operation: Sava River Basin (on-going) and Mirna (tendering)
Coastal management plans / Dutch bilateral co-operation (on-going)
For each RBD analyses of:
1. characteristics of the river basin
2. pressures
3. impacts / Establishment of the methodology and application of the pilot basin: Kupa / Dutch bilateral cooperation “Development of a framework for formulation of a Regional Water Management Plans in the Coastal Zones of Croatia” completed project – some methodological issues discussed
Establishment of reference conditions and reference sites for the inter-calibration network / partially
Preparation for specification of values for the ecological status classification systems / CADSES: for Drava River Basin
Neretva and Tebišnjica (proposal)
LIFE 2004: Establish institutional capacities for the projection of the River Mura Landscaper
LIFE-2005 INTERNATIONAL
Protection of Biodiversity of the Sava River Basin Floodplains (just approved)
guidance documents (prepared by the WFD – working groups) / some of the guidance documents discussed within project on Sava river basin
Designation of groundwater bodies / Technical studies conducted
National Strategies according to the Article 16 and 17 of the WFD
Identify waters used for the abstraction of drinking water and ensure compliance with Council Directive 80/778/EEC of 15 July 1980 relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption (2). / Drinking water protection zones established
Operational monitoring programmes
Publication of River Basing Management Plans (by 2009) - (14) information available to the public / UNDP/GEF: Danube River Basin: drafted methodology
WFD:(16) integration of protection and sustainable management of water into other policy areas:
· energy
· transport,
· agriculture
· fisheries
· regional policy
· tourism / Some initiatives e.g. cleaning of inland-transport ways
Lists of measures (Annex VI – PART A) / for the Directives: Dangerous substances, Drinking waters,
Sewage, Sludge (partially),
UWWT,
Nitrates
Lists of measures (Annex VI – PART B)
3.3. Results