EU ponders a blueprint for water

The European Commission is putting the finishing touches to a far-reaching water strategy. Vic Wyman reports.

The summer drought in European policymaking could be followed by a flood of lobbying by industry and others as the European Commission finalises a water policy blueprint to be published this year.

The Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Water will reveal the European Union strategy up to 2020 and look forward as far as 2050, setting out the Commission’s response to what it calls “old and emerging challenges” threatening its water aims.

The blueprint will take account of assessments of: national river basin management plans under the water framework directive (WFD); action on water scarcity and drought; the vulnerability of water and environmental resources to climate change and man-made pressures; and a fitness check of freshwater policy.

On the table are contentious topics including water pricing, water metering and the water efficiency of domestic and agricultural equipment.

Metering finds favour

The Commission believes metering is essential to ensuring good quality water in sufficient quantities. Peter Gammeltoft, the head of water at the Commission’s environment arm DG Environment, says metering is needed for the commercial viability of water services and to spur efficient water usage. “The absence of metering is an invitation to unsustainability,” he says. “We must have metering.”

The Commission has flagged up mandatory metering for consideration as part of future policy, but has not itself called for its introduction, which could meet widespread opposition.

Carl-Emil Larsen, president of the European Federation of National Associations of Water and Wastewater Services, told Utility Week: “We don’t believe in mandatory metering for all households.”

However, metering has widespread support. In July in the UK, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee responded to a government white paper on water by calling for a doubling of the level of metering in England and Wales by 2020, from about 40 per cent today.

In June, the Institution of Civil Engineers called for universal metering, with “social tariffs” to protect the poor, as part of “decisive action to tackle the UK’s water security”.

Also in July, the European Parliament called for water metering to be made binding across all sectors and users in Europe. It also wanted the implementation of the WFD “to be improved significantly in order to achieve ‘good status’ throughout European waters by 2015”. The WFD took effect in 2000.

Pricing failures

The Commission also believes that many EU water pricing schemes do not allocate costs fairly. Nor do they stimulate water efficiency or recover the real cost of water. “The current pricing schemes in Europe quite often fail to combine all of those,” says Henriette Faergemann, a DG Environment policy officer.

“When water prices are low it is difficult to implement water efficiency measures,” adds DG Environment policy officer Jorge Rodriguez-Romero.

The Commission decided recently, after several warnings, to take Germany to the EU court over the application of water pricing for drinking water supply and wastewater treatment. It claims the WFD requires the real costs of water services to be passed to all users, to encourage efficiency.

The Commission is investigating similar potential breaches in seven other EU countries, while non-compliant Ireland was expected to change its legislation soon.

In July, the European Parliament called on the Commission and EU countries to apply “the polluter pays” and “the user pays” principles through “transparent and effective pricing schemes” for the recovery of the costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs, under the WFD.

Many instruments

At a recent Commission conference, Faergemann said that pricing barriers included: insufficient knowledge about water flows; inappropriate and ineffective economic instrument structures; low social acceptability and understanding of water’s value; historical and legal barriers; pressure from industry; and a lack of preconditions such as metering and an end to illegal abstraction.

“Illegal abstraction makes the whole pricing system fall apart,” she said. “It is really a serious problem,” echoed Sergey Moroz of the campaign group WWF, who claimed that there was technology to tackle the problem: “It can be done. It just needs a bit of political will.”

Faergemann said that after pricing, water markets, payments for ecosystem services, certification and labelling were other potential economic instruments. All could feature in the blueprint.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 31 August 2012.

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