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Developments on the EU Drinking water directive

Bij het aanklikken van onderstaande documenten is in veel gevallen een nederlandstalige versie beschikbaar.

1.      The background

There is several important EU legislation linked to drinking water:
·         Directive on quality of water intended for human consumption, called Drinking water directive (98/83/EC, DWD).
·         Directive concerning radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption Council Directive 2013/51/EURATOM came into force on 28.11.2015 superseding the radioactivity requirements in Directive 98/83/EC.
·         Groundwater directive or the directive on the protection of groundwater against pollution and deterioration (2006/118/EU).
·         Bottled water directive on the exploitation and marketing of natural mineral waters (2009/54/EU)[1].

The main piece of the EU water legislation – the EU Water framework directive (WFD 2000/60/EU) several articles and annexes[2] are also linking drinking water in the sense of the drinking source protection, monitoring of drinking water, and measures linked to the river basin management approach.

2.      Drinking water directive: What’s up?

The main EU directive to regulate drinking water from source to tap is Drinking Water directive 98/83/EU (DWD).
·         Two technical annexes of the directive have been recently updated and came into force on 27.10.2015 (see 2015/1787/EU). The member states must comply with this directive not later than 27.10.2017.
·         The new evaluation of the overall Drinking Water Directive has been included in the Commissions' Working Plan "A new Start" 2015, COM(2014) 910 final, Annex 3, under so called the European Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance programme (REFIT). An external study has been launched by the DG Environment that originally started already in 2014 followed by two stakeholder consultations (see the results of the first available here) with a most recent on 08.12.2015.
·         In the 2nd stakeholder meeting on the assessment of DWD, the consultant presented the holistic approach to the drinking water striving to place drinking water directive in the overall water cycle. The draft six policy options for DWD proposed by the consultant have been shortly presented for the discussion. The policy options in general were concentrated on the following themes:

o   Risk based assessment: beyond compliance on the tap;
o   selection of parameters and threshold values;
o   Controlling the risk of pollution from material in contact with drinking water;
o   SMART information for consumers;
o   Emerging resource efficiency and the efficient management of water services;
o   Safe drinking water for all citizens.

·         The background document for the 2nd stakeholder consultation is available here, and the draft final report – here.
·         The final report of the DWD assessment by the consultant should be available early 2016.
·         According to new work plan of the EC DG ENV, in 2016 there will be a continuation of the work on to the Impact assessment of the DWD.
o   The EC Impact Assessment study is planned to be available in May 2016.
o   In relation to the Drinking water directive revision, the regular expert group on drinking water will be held on 22.01.2016, where the decision-makers from the member states responsible for the drinking water directive implementation are taking part in the meeting.

3.      Other activities of the EC DG Environment linked to drinking water

·         Cooperation project on drinking water issues between EC DG Environment and World Health Organisation (WHO) on the topics linked to the EU drinking water directive and WHO guidance (see document here) is planned to start in 2016 (most probably in September).
·         The Commission is starting analysing in depth the issues of the materials in contact with water. The consultant recently (in December 2015) started a new contract to support the EC on this topic. The meeting on the topic are planned in January 2016 and a symposium in May 2016.
·         The EC is also organising the seminar on drinking water protection: from source to tap that will be held on 21.01.2016. The two other expert groups from the network of the Common Implementation strategy of the EU Water legislation (under WFD) –WG on chemicals and WG on ground water are involved.
·         Furthermore, the Commission together with the European Environmental Agency (EEA, Copenhagen) in 2014 initiated the structured dialogue between stakeholders on benchmarking water quality and water services which has been continued in 2015 (see more information here).

To follow more about the review of the DWD read the information here.
Do you have any comments, concerns or you need more details on Drinking water directive impact assessment? Please contact vk@vlakwa.be.  

[1] That contains two main types of bottled water: mineral water and spring water. [2] WFD art.5, 7, 11, 16, 22 and annexes V and VI.

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