Strasbourg, 15/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 13 June, the European Parliament re-asserted its desire not to weaken the September 2003 draft directive on the protection of groundwater against pollution, to replace the 1980 directive. Just like the rapporteur Christa Klass (EPP-ED, Germany) the plenary session judged, by a large majority, that the Council's common position did not pay sufficient attention to prevention. It decided, then, to raise the bar on the second reading.
The text adopted by the Parliament, very close to the Commission's text on the environment (see EUROPE 9182), does not impose single standards for all countries, except for nitrates and pesticides, but it does seek to harmonise methods for measuring potential pollutants. MEPs set out the sampling methodologies, established a common methodology for the protection of spa and medicinal waters, and tightened up the wording of the legislation and closed loopholes, notably to ensure that catchment areas for drinking water were indeed protected. The scope of the regulation was widened to cover the protection of groundwater “against pollution and deterioration”. The notion of “deterioration” was carefully defined as “any slight, anthropogenically induced and persistent increase in concentrations of pollutants in relation to the status quo in the groundwater”. Two other notions were added: the “background concentration” of a substance in groundwater, that is, the concentration corresponding to no anthropogenical modification, or to very slight modification of the status quo in the ground water, and “baseline concentration”, or the average concentration measured during the course of the reference years, 2007 and 2008, based on monitoring programmes established as part of the framework directive on water.
Parliament also suggested special aid within the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy to allow farmers to adapt to the levels to be applied to nitrates and pesticides in the future which will require them to amend their farming practices. For around ten other dangerous substances (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, sulphates, etc.), the directive leaves it up to Member States to lay down limit values. These values will be assessed, five years after the directive comes into force, and every six years thereafter. MEPs want the overall effectiveness of the directive to be assessed by 2015. Member States will be free to maintain or introduce stricter protection measures than those provided for in the directive.