| Author (Person) | Carstens, Karen |
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| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.10, No.23, 24.6.04 |
| Publication Date | 24/06/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Karen Carstens Date: 24/06/04 THE Irish presidency is pressing for an agreement from Monday's (28 June) meeting of EU environment ministers to revise the Union's 28-year-old bathing-water directive. The law imposes obligations on the EU states to measure and classify the quality of its inland and coastal bathing waters and to publish the results. National delegations are still arguing over whether water that meets the basic cleanliness requirements should be described as "satisfactory", "adequate" or "acceptable", but Irish officials believe they can secure agreement on Monday. In the run-up to the meeting, the German delegation was holding out for further reassurance that the revised law would guarantee real improvement on the 1976 standards but the European Commission had come round to the presidency's compromise proposal. Although the 1976 directive has been overtaken both by advances in scientific technique and by the EU's Water Framework directive, the Commission's earlier attempts to revise the law ran into opposition from some member states. Officials said a preparatory meeting of deputy permanent representatives to the EU yesterday (23 June) concluded with across-the-board acceptance of specific "microbiological limit values" for E.coli and intestinal enterococci. These are indicators of the faecal contamination of water which could cause gastroenteritis in humans. There are separate values for inland and coastal waters. Under the terms of the draft directive, the waters would be classified, depending on the level of contamination, as "excellent", "good", "satisfactory" or, in the case of failing the standards, "poor". The Commission can take member states to court if they do not respect the recommended quality level, although arguably the more powerful sanction is the obligation to publish the data. Last Autumn, when the Commission was calling for tougher contamination limits, the European Parliament backed them, which suggests that the compromise might yet fall foul of MEPs. Stefan Scheuer, of the European Environmental Bureau, said that the UK and the Netherlands in particular had consistently criticized higher limit values, whereas Germany would have preferred more demanding standards. An EU diplomat said: "My prediction is that 25 member states will say 'Yes'." But he predicted "a big fight" with the Parliament. The draft legislation currently includes a transposition period of three years for member states to implement the legislation. The scientific data has to be collected for four years before an assessment can be made.
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Environment |
