Negotiators from the European Parliament, led by Christophe Hansen, and the EU Council, assisted by the Commission, are not at the end of their ordeal to reach agreement on the recast of the 1998 Drinking Water Directive, in response to the European Citizens' Initiative Right2Water.
The EU Council Presidency informed the National Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on Friday 22 November that the third trilogue negotiating meeting, which took place on 19 November, was long, difficult and, as expected, non-conclusive (see EUROPE 12370/3).
Delegations did not comment, as a further technical meeting will be held before the fourth trilogue on 3 December. Coreper will prepare a revised negotiating mandate on 27 November. The representative of the European Commission asked Member States to be flexible.
There is still a lot of work to be done, although many aspects of the text were discussed on 19 November, namely: the risk-based approach (Articles 7-10), public access to information (Article 14 and Annex IV), materials in contact with water (Article 10a, 10b and Annex VIII), access to water (Article 1 to 3), as well as parameters, parametric values, monitoring of substances in water (lead, endocrine disrupters, boron, selenium, microplastics).
The only progress made in the third trilogue was on the aspects related to the risk-based approach, but the issue of microplastics, which was discussed at the end of the meeting, was not resolved. Yet, there will be no agreement on anything until everything is agreed upon.
For lead, there is still no unanimity in the EU Council on the approach to be adopted. In any case, if all Member States agree to set a limit value (5mg/l) for lead in pipes in new constructions, they cannot accept a limit value for this heavy metal for existing pipes, even if the application period was 25 or 30 years. This is due to the implementation difficulties and costs of upgrading installations in old private and public buildings.
For endocrine disrupters, Parliament still wants this directive to be used as a first step in tackling the problem of these substances. The Commission has made a new proposal to add bisphenol A to the text of the Directive and to leave the other two on the EU Council's monitoring list. This proposal received a mixed reception from delegations.
On access to water, the European Parliament has taken a step towards the EU Council by waiving the requirement that Member States guarantee universal access to water. It could accept a non-binding wording emphasising the efforts to be made by Member States to improve access to drinking water.
Transparency, i.e. public access to information on water quality, is one of the areas in which the EU Council could take a step towards Parliament.
Materials in contact with water: the EU Council wants to keep the text of its general approach as it stands, which is very precise and based on the expertise of the Member States.
The issue of comitology (delegated or implementing acts) also remains to be resolved in order to adapt the data to scientific progress.
The negotiations are so difficult because the EU Council is not calling for this recast of the legislation, since the 1998 Directive on water intended for human consumption is very well respected by the Member States and the quality of drinking water in the EU is 99% in line with the requirements of this text. Moreover, from the outset, it considered that the issue of access to water had nothing to do with a directive on the quality of tap, recalled a diplomatic source on Friday. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)