On Wednesday 29 April, the European Commission decided to refer Spain to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for failing to fully comply with the collection, treatment and monitoring obligations set in the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (Council Directive 91/271/EEC).
Spain still has to ensure that 15 agglomerations benefit from wastewater collection systems and that, where the use of individual or other appropriate systems is justified, they achieve the same level of environmental protection of a collecting system.
In 39 agglomerations, Spain is still failing to ensure secondary treatment of the entire agglomerations’ pollution load and/or fails to meet the treatment requirements for the discharges into normal areas after treatment.
In eight agglomerations, it fails to guarantee tertiary treatment of the entire pollution load and/or does not comply with the requirements for the discharges into normal areas after treatment.
Finally, in 52 agglomerations, Spain fails to ensure that discharges from treatment plants are monitored to verify compliance. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)