Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-02-Speech-1-126-000"
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"en.20120702.20.1-126-000"2
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"Mr President, water is one of the key resources that we, the human species, have available to us. We have now prepared a report in Parliament with which we will be providing the Commission with a few ideas for the blueprint for European water legislation that it is due to table in the autumn. Clearly, there are a number of factors that have an influence on water management, to wit, climate change, population growth, urbanisation, land use and so on.
We have achieved something here in Europe, especially in 2000 with the major work that is the Water Framework Directive, which provides a solid framework for tackling the problems with our waters. Interesting in this regard, in particular, is the integrative approach that results from the Water Framework Directive. It works in river basin districts – national borders are irrelevant. It also sets sustainability targets: by 2015, all European waters are to achieve ‘good’ ecological and chemical status.
Despite this, we have a number of gaps in the implementation, as we have unfortunately now observed. Although 24 Member States have submitted 119 river basin management plans, 4 have submitted none at all. Some Member States, unfortunately, have not achieved ‘good’ status, including Sweden, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and the groundwater figures are not good enough for many a Member State, including Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and Slovakia.
Unfortunately, we also observe that not all the data that we need for evaluation are available. The chemical status of 42% of European waters is unknown. We also have little in the way of comparable data, in particular, when it comes to water shortage and drought. You will be aware that climate change has a heavy influence on water management. Despite this, our models, in particular when it comes to water management, are very inadequate.
We would point out that there are major deficiencies in terms of efficiency, especially in the case of the large-scale water consumers, which means industry, agriculture and energy generation. We should set clear goals in this connection.
One approach to tackling these challenges is definitely the regional dimension, which I believe needs to be strengthened. Europe only uses a total of around 13% of its water reserves, but with an extreme geographical distribution. Eight Member States suffer from water stress – that covers a total of 46% of the European population. My Member State, for example, uses only 3% of its water resources, which means that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution, as the problems vary in different places.
We also need to promote mainstreaming, in other words, that the large-scale water consumers and the policy areas that have an influence on water legislation, such as agricultural policy and regional policy, increasingly also begin to think in terms of water-related areas. We have had some success in this regard – by way of example, we have already spent EUR 14 billion on wastewater treatment within regional policy and we have also connected an additional 12% of the population to the public wastewater system. There are still large amounts of money in this field – let us consider Romania and Bulgaria – that have actually not been spent. The Commission needs to intervene to a greater extent in this connection.
In the field of agricultural policy, too, however – which is to be characterised in the forthcoming period by a ‘greening’ – there needs to be a greater influence of this blueing factor, in other words, giving consideration to the water impact of measures. I find it particularly important that the water sector also has a major importance economically, too, and Europe has something to offer in this regard; growth rates of 5%, as compared with 2.5% in the rest of the economy, have already been identified here. Europe has much to offer in this area, and I really hope that the Commission takes account of the water sector in its new research programme, Horizon 2020, as well."@en1
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