Invited to discuss the ‘Water Resilience Strategy’ proposal (see EUROPE 13653/7) with MEPs on the Committee on the Environment on Monday, 7 July, European Commissioner for the Environment Jessika Roswall had to face a torrent of criticism.
Thomas Bajada (S&D, Maltese), the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the initiative, reproached her, “Your strategy fails to offer any type of immediate concrete measures” (see EUROPE 13635/4). In particular, the European Commission was reproached for settling for non-binding targets—Javi Lopez (S&D, Spanish) taking the view that the objectives would not be achieved this way.
MEPs notably emphasised the lack of any proposals to combat ‘PFAS’ pollution in the strategy—“despite its bold rhetoric”, pointed out Kai Tegethoff (Greens/EFA, German).
Christophe Clergeau (S&D, French) expressed that he did not understand how the PFAS issue was being handled after Jessika Roswall reiterated that the European Commission would be working to ban them from consumer goods. According to the Socialist, the approach can only be [seen as] inadequate in “a Europe where there will not be any more drinking water because of PFAS”. Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (Renew Europe, Dutch), for his part, reproached the European Commission for proposing a response that was “not sufficiently marked by a sense of urgency”.
The issue of water resilience funding was also raised: Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French) asked Jessika Roswall whether the issue of resilience would be incorporated into the methodology for the next long-term EU budget in order to avoid funding projects that contravene it.
“Why is the Commission unprepared to hold to account those responsible for poisoning our water [resources] in [the] first place?” asked Kai Tegethoff. Thomas Bajada acknowledged that the ‘polluter pays’ principle did feature in the strategy but that, once again, there was “no proposal to enforce it”.
Per Clausen (The Left, Danish) asked whether the European Commission intended to initiate proceedings against States that “still fail to comply with water management regulations”.
Confronting the European Commission with its contradictions, Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German) and Lynn Boylan (The Left, Irish) wondered how the European Commission intended to ensure that water would be safe to drink—while simultaneously “lowering the requirements weighing on chemical industries” (see EUROPE 13672/7)—and how to ensure that companies would comply with water resilience if “the very piece of legislation that tried to tackle the problem”, the ‘Green Claims Directive’, is abandoned (see EUROPE 13665/11). (Original version in French by Florent Servia)