Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-28-Speech-4-011"
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"en.20050428.5.4-011"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, water is life, and groundwater is our main source of fresh water and hence also of drinking water, providing as it does 60% of the latter.
Groundwater is, though, not just a vital resource for the extraction of our drinking water; it is also essential to agriculture, industry and our eco-system. However hard we try to keep our water – and our groundwater in particular – clean, and to restore its purity where it is already polluted, we must, not least at European level, strike a sensible balance between the requirements of the water industry, the needs of agriculture, the eco-systems and the resources available for maintaining and restoring the purity of water in the Member States. As the re-purification of polluted groundwater is very difficult, very time-consuming and, in particular, very costly, prevention and the protection of the groundwater eco-system are particularly important.
On the European continent, at any rate, groundwater bodies, like rivers, know no borders. It is for that reason, and also because differing requirements in the Member States inevitably lead to distortions of competition for industry and agriculture, that the protection of groundwater is a task for Europe. Fortunately, though, we are not starting from nothing. This proposal from the Commission is derived from the Water Framework Directive, which has been in force since the year 2000, and was meant to be transposed in all the Member States from the end of December 2003. The primary task imposed on the Member States by the Water Framework Directive was the inventarisation of all waters by 22 March 2005. If all the Member States have met that deadline – and perhaps Commissioner Dimas can tell us whether or not they have – then every one of them ought, by now at the latest, to know in what condition its waters and groundwater are.
The Water Framework Directive lays down quality and quantity targets for all Community waters, including groundwater, and specifies the means whereby they are to be achieved. This daughter directive is intended to deal with two points that remain outstanding, firstly the criteria by reference to which groundwater is to be categorised as ‘good’ or ‘poor’ and, secondly, the point in time at which action must be taken if deterioration is established. We must also determine whether there is a need to enact rules on the indirect introduction of pollutants from point sources and diffuse sources.
We must consider in their context all the relevant directives: the Water Framework Directive, the Priority Substances Directive, the Nitrates Directive and the Plant Protection Products Directive. The costs incurred in administering and implementing them, and in monitoring their implementation, must be tolerable, without making it less likely that groundwater will be maintained in a good chemical status in all 25 EU Member States, for that is our objective.
We would, though, risk missing this target if we were to adopt the so-called compromise amendment 94 to Article 6, which has been tabled jointly by the PSE, the Liberals, the Greens and the GUE/NGL Group, and which would alter the fundamental direction not only of my report, but also of the Commission proposal and of the Water Framework Directive. It seeks to overburden the Member States by drawing up new lists of what it describes as hazardous substances and by imposing tasks to be regulated by the chemicals policy now in REACH. It proposes a new category of groundwater bodies mandated with the certification of safety zones with the chemical status of ‘very good’, and calls for an array of new examination, reporting and supervision requirements, the additional costs of which would be borne by the Member States and by municipalities. The amendment is also couched in very vague and repetitious terms. It goes as far as to do away with all the derogations from Article 6(2) that water experts regard as necessary and that are also contained in the 1980 Groundwater Directive. We must not accept this amendment; the laboriously-achieved compromise in the Water Framework Directive must not be altered by a daughter directive on groundwater.
There are two other amendments proposing uniform European standards on the quality of groundwater for important indicators and pollutants. I think it very important, if we are to avoid distortions of competition and have a comparable standard of groundwater protection throughout our Member States, that we in this House should call for uniform European categories of this kind for the evaluation of groundwater as ‘good’ or ‘poor’, and so, with this in mind, I ask you to support Amendments 111 and 112.
We also have to draw a clear distinction between pollutants and indicators. I have tried to separate them completely, for sulphate, chloride and aluminium are not in fact pollutants, but rather important indicators of the chemical status of the groundwater and of the possible presence of certain impurities and pollutants. It is ultimately impossible to constantly monitor every conceivable pollutant, for there are hundreds or even thousands of them. Let me conclude by asking the House to support Amendments 89 and 90, which divide the list into indicators and pollutants. I ask you all to ensure today that our waters will, in future, be well protected by a Europe that acts together."@en1
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