EU WATER LAW and POLICY

As a reminder: “a high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment must be integrated into the policies of the Union”. As the Lisbon Treaty also states, “the Union shall ensure consistency between its policies and activities, taking all of its objectives into account and in accordance with the principle of conferral of powers”. However, compliance by the European institutions with this obligation to integrate environmental requirements continues to face numerous difficulties. Beyond the issues of choosing the appropriate legal basis for EU legislation , various conflicts of socio-economic and ecological objectives with different timeframes hinder this complex environmental integration process. The search for a “reasonable” conciliation between environmental objectives such as water protection and the objectives of another EU policy such as the Common Agricultural Policy.
In 2020, the EEA confirmed that “reducing pressures from agricultural activities is key to achieving good status of all surface water and groundwater bodies”. It underlines in particular that “despite improvements, pressures remain at an unsustainable level, with high nitrogen surplus and over-abstraction in large parts of Europe and few signs of further improvement over the past 10 years” . The EEA concludes that “incremental efficiency gains in the use of nutrients, pesticides or water will be not sufficient”. Climate change will make the situation worse if no major systemic changes across agriculture, food and energy policies are made. In the EU strategy Farm to Fork (2020), the Commission planned to take measures to “reduce the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50 % and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 2030”. In the context of the Common Agricultural Policy reform, the national strategic plans (2021-2027) are supposed to play a central role to ensure the transition to real sustainable agriculture in compliance with environmental legislation and in particular with the WFD . In this regard the European Court of Auditors underlines that “agricultural policies both in the EU and MS were not consistently aligned with EU water policy”. In its special report of 2021, it recommends to “link CAP payments to environmental standards to sustainable water use” and “ensure that EU-funded projects help achieve the WFD objectives”.
Financing the implementation of EU water legislation is a major challenge. In accordance with article 192-4 of the TFEU, the Member States “shall finance and implement the environment policy”. The contribution of the European Structural and Investment Funds is therefore helpful. For example, the EU Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund play an important role that needs to be strengthened to achieve the ambitious WFD, or the obligations of other Water legislations such as the EU Urban Waste Directive.
A detailed analysis of the integration of water requirements into all EU legislation and policies is beyond the scope of this training module: however, it is interesting to focus on the right for certain persons to request an internal review of an administrative act or omission to the EU Institution or body in accordance with Regulation (EC) 1367/2006 on the application of the Aarhus Convention. Regulation (EU) 2021/1767 amending Regulation (EC) 1367/2006 extends the categories of persons entitled to submit such requests for internal review from 19/4/2023 . The notion of an administrative act is also revised: “any non-legislative act adopted by a Union institution or body which has legal and external effects and contains provisions that may contravene environmental law“. The expression “environmental law” is defined broadly and means “Community legislation which, irrespective of its legal basis, contributes to the pursuit of the objectives of Community policy on the environment as set out in the treaty”. However, Regulation (EC) 1367/2006 excludes administrative acts and administrative omissions by an EU institution or body in its capacity as an administrative review body “such as” competition rules (articles 81, 82, 86, 87) from the scope of the internal review .