WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE

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A - Ambitious objectives and general obligations to enhance and prevent deterioration of the status of bodies of water

 

The WFD sets 5 main purposes for the protection of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters, and groundwater which are:

  1. prevents further deterioration and protects and enhances the status of aquatic ecosystems and with regard to their water need, terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands directly depending on the aquatic ecosystems;
  2. promotes sustainable water user based on a long-term protection of available water resources;
  3. aims at enhanced protection and improvement of aquatic environment, inter alia, through specific measures for the progressive reduction of discharges, emissions and losses of priority substances and the cessation or phasing-out of discharges, emissions and losses of the priority hazardous substances;
  4. ensures the progressive reduction of pollution of groundwater and prevents its further pollution and;
  5. contributes to mitigating the effects of floods and droughts”
That framework must, in a more specific way, “contribute to the provision of the sufficient supply of good quality surface water and groundwater”, to the “significant reduction in pollution of groundwater”, to the “protection of territorial and marine waters”, and to the achievement of the “objectives of relevant international agreements, including those which aim to prevent and eliminate pollution of marine environment”.

The “ultimate objectiveClick here for more information! was to achieve a good status for all EU surface waters (more than 100 000 Click here for more information!) and groundwater (more than 13 000 Click here for more information!) by 2015. The WFD introduced a distinction between surface water and groundwater determining their status and their “good status”. On the one hand, for surface water, the status is defined as “the general expression of the status (…) determined by the poorer of its ecological status and its chemical status”; and the “good surface water status means the status achieved by a surface water body when both its ecological status and its chemical status are at least good”. Defined as “an expression of the quality of the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems associated with surface watersClick here for more information!, the ecological status comprises a series of quality elements by type of water bodies, such as biological and hydromorphological elements, quantity and dynamics of water flows, or connection to the groundwater body for lakes.
On the other hand, groundwater water is defined as the “general expression of the status of a body of groundwater determined by the poorer of its quantitative status and its chemical status; and “Good groundwater status means the status achieved by a groundwater body when both its quantitative status and its chemical status are at least good”.

Member States must design and implement different measures to attain the ambitious environmental objectives. The WFD provides thus “a complex process involving a number of extensively regulated stages, for the purpose of enabling the Member States to implement the necessary measures, on the basis of the specific features and the characteristics of the bodies of water identified in their territories” Click here for more information!.
By making the programmes of measures specified in the river basin management plans operational, they “shall implement the necessary measures to prevent deterioration of the status of all bodies” of surface and groundwater (article 4(1) a) & b). They shall also “protect, enhance and restore all bodies” of surface water and groundwater “with the aim of achieving good surface water status” and “good groundwater status” “at the latest 15 years after the date of entry into force of this directive”. (Article 4 (1) a) ii & b) ii). As stated by the Court, the wording “shall implementinvolves an obligation on the Member States to act to that effect”. It also considered that an authorisation of an individual project “as such implementationClick here for more information! of article 4, in particular article 4 (1).
In light of the wording, the scheme and the purpose of article 4, the Court also judges that article 4 (1) “does not simply set out, in programmatic terms, mere management-planning objectives, but has binding effects, once the ecological status of the body of water concerned has been determined, at each stage of the procedure prescribed by that directiveClick here for more information!, in particular “during the process of granting permits for particular projectsClick here for more information!.
The Court underlines that article 4 (1) thus provides “two distinct albeit intrinsically linked binding objectivesClick here for more information!: an obligation to enhance and an obligation to prevent deterioration of the status of bodies of water.
The obligation to prevent deterioration of the status of bodies of water “is not merely an instrument placed at the service of the obligation to enhance the status of bodies of waterClick here for more information!. The notion of non-deterioration is not defined by the WFD and its understanding gives rise to divergent interpretations; there is an increase of recent disputes before the Court of Justice, in particular in the context of the reference for preliminary ruling.