B - Key specific obligations on Member States: Characterisation, register of protected area, programmes and pricing of water
4 - Pricing of water
In the report on the implementation on the WFD (2019) the Commission calls on Member States to “ensure the proper implementation of article 9 on cost recovery, including calculation and internationalisation of environment and resources cost for all activities with a significant impact on water bodies” 
. It also states that “judging from the large number of water bodies not in good quantitative status, the potential for water prices to better reflect the actual scarcity of water does not seem fully appreciated” . IN 2021, The European Court of Auditors noted that “the polluters do not bear the full cost for water pollution”. As it underlines “in EU, households usually pay for most of the cost of water supply and sanitation services, even though they consume only 10% of water (…) and the cost recovery principle is difficult to apply to pollution originating from diffuse sources, for example from agriculture, where it is difficult to identify the polluters” .
