On 23-24 March 2015, the European Commission hold the 4th European Water Conference with more than 400 participants all over the Europe balanced across sectors and Member States. This is a key milestone to assess the progress made for far for the Commission as well as for the Member States - for those, working directly or indirectly on the implementation of the Water Framework (WFD) and Floods Directives (FD) at national, regional or local level, and different stakeholders involved in water sector. The conference hold the debates about the number of the key topics, several of them - the key priority such as:

- Experiences from the first cycle of the implementation of the WFD;

- The European Commission's assessment of the implementation of the WFD programmes of measures

- Preparations and expectations for the second River Basin Management Plans

- Experiences in the implementation of the Floods Directive, the preparation of the Flood Hazard and Risk Maps and the Flood Risk Management Plans

- Integration issues: links between water policy and agriculture, energy, and navigation policies

- Opportunities to support water policy under the new financing period 2014-2020 (Rural Development Programmes, Operational Programmes, etc.)

A number of valuable documents have been prepared on this occasion that are available to download from the Commission web-site - ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/impl_reports.htm

As for the status in Belgium/ Flanders, regarding the implementation WFD and FD, the results are satisfactory - regarding the huge preparatory efforts for Scheldt River Basin Flanders did. Sven Verbeke ( Flemish Environment Agency) shared Flanders experience of the Integration pf Flood Risk Management Plans into River Basin Management Plans. Regarding the Commission consultants report on screening of the draft second River Basin Management Plans - Report for Belgium the information for the Scheldt RB in Flanders one can be underlined:

· cost-effectiveness analyses (page 66) and cost financing of PoM (page 74) are well presented/reported by FL,

· Recommendations for Flanders for Scheldt RB on the efforts of the implementation agricultural measures: - is that Nitrogen and Phosphorus removal is still not sufficiently taken into account to reduce pollution from agriculture, and furthermore there is no sufficient reflection on the role of Rural Development Plans (RDP) in financing measures to tackle

· Not enough efforts have been brought for measures to Drinking Water Protected Areas

· Not enough efforts to foresee the role of Rural Development Plans (RDP) in financing measures to tackle agricultural pressures

· Groundwater status assessment - not enough efforts have been done

· Report says that "A new Action Programme for the Nitrates Directive is being negotiated but it does not make any commitment on the required ambition level. Specific information on additional measures provided and information on reduction of N and P. No information has been found on the funding out of the Rural development plans. Several actions have been formulated in the Programme of measures on Action Plan on Sustainable Pesticide Use.

" There are several reports important and interesting for Belgium:

· Assessments of the River Basin Management Plans of Belgium

· Assessment of Programmes of Measures for Belgium

· A Commission Communication on WFD and FD implementation: Summary

· An European overview of WFD Programmes of Measures (PoM) and FD The Conference documents are available in CIRCABC.