[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Hello. Having looked together at the institutional water regimes in Switzerland and in the European Union, I would now like to focus on current water management in the European Union. We will work on the third generation that I presented to you in the previous section. The legal framework of this generation, is the european framework directive from the 2000s. You can view the
directive through this link. It came to light following negotiations initiated in 1995 after the failure of a more ambitious directive on ecological quality in European waters. It's a fairly important document, more than 72 pages in length which highlights an inclusive and integrated, approach. If you consult the document you can see that words like “sustainability” or “quality of the resource” appear throughout. To present this regulation, I suggest you first look at the objectives, then the key principles and finally compare with the current state of uses and water quality. Among the objectives and features, it should be noted that, in reality, there are two major components in water regulation in the European Union present in the majority of Commission documents. The Commission articulating economic growth on the one hand, and environmental quality and sustainability, on the other. The first component is an organizational component which aims for self-efficiency in management. Its objectives will be structured around three main mechanisms, privatization, liberalization and rationalization of public procurement. Privatization is an important element. The increase in public-private partnerships between 2011 and 2025 for the whole European Union is assessed at greater than 11%. This is a relatively large growth. Next, liberalization. It should be noted, that there is not a fundamental sector liberalization as Guy, Director General for competition at the European level, pointed out in 2004: it's impossible to do so because this is a unique area. However, this does not prevent us learning from these principles and trying to integrate them in the sector when they are relevant. Finally, rationalization. Public procurement that will aim to improve management with increased transparency, efficiency, and in turn, the integration of new methods of regulation i.e. performance indicators, benchmarking, and reports in particular. The second component is the environmental component. The main objective here is sustainable development and sustainability that I told you. They are leitmotifs in the WFD. There are three perspectives to articulate: firstly, the protection of the resource, the preservation of the resource and sustainability. Sustainability, in reality, means ensuring both the uses’ quality and quantity, quality of the resource as well as the quantity for all uses and all actors. After presenting these characteristics and objectives, I would like to cover the seven key principles of WFD and European level regulation. The first principle is that water is not a commodity, it is a common good. It belongs to all and to no one at the same time and, in reality, requires us to be careful when you uses it to not prevent other uses. The second principle is that of sustainability. As I said, this is present both in the components of the WFD and also in the text. The third is the management of both the quantity and the quality. This is something that we have already seen during the two previous sections. We see that management by quantity has helped fundamentally increase governance since it tries to encompass the entire resource. There may be uses which don’t degrade the quality of the resource but it will be degraded anyway by overexploitation. Next, there is the “polluter pays” principle helping to better targeting actors who cause pollution or who could have adverse effects on subsequent uses or the quality of the resource or its quantity. The fifth principle which is very important is that “water pays for water”. This means that all money used by the sector should also finance the sector. Let us move to a sector which is self-financing and avoids external grants etc. In France, there was the M49 accounting that forced municipalities to keep the accounts for the waste water purification sector distinct from all others in the municipality. The sixth principle concerns the watershed area. Governance at the watershed level is a principle that which was introduced in France in 1964 and today is adopted in most countries. And finally, the seventh principle, is participation. There are more and more users that will play a role in water management at the European level - NGOs, associations, users, but also operators, regulators and governments. Having presented the principles, this last section aims to compare WFD objectives with the current state of uses and the quality of the resource. As mentioned earlier and as seen with the IRR the objective of the European Union was to harmonize governance with common principles and procedural rules meaning that they impose a method, a way to implement and not just goals. Nevertheless, there are three diverse models of water governance in France, These models are the English model, the French model and the German model. They are particularly apparent when one looks at management at a local level including sanitation and drinking water services. The English model is a regional model and privatized. The French model is a rather politicized model and local. The German model is a strong local public model. From an organizational standpoint, the first component of water regulation at the European level, one model can not be considered more effective than another. These models depend on the history of the country, whether legal, historical, by definition economic or institutional, and will therefore enable the implementation of European principles. However it is clear that these models all have capacities and adaptation processes which are different and that these organizations are closely related to the establishment of a public service. In England, public service does not have the same virtues and the same objectives that you would have in Germany or France. Next, the second component - the environmental aspect. It should be noted that effort and progress are still required. Indeed the aim is for a good ecological status of water for 2015 and 2025. And we will not reach it. For illustration, consult the documents of the European Environment Agency found by following this link. For now, take a look at this map. This map shows the proportion of bodies of water that have not reached a “good” ecological status, going from the ideal - green, through to burgundy red. It should be noted, that in almost any area, each watershed has approximately more than 30% of its bodies of water that have not achieved a good environmental status. There is a considerable part of the European region in which over 50% of the bodies of water do not have a good ecological status. And that is in the center of the European Union. It is also very important to note, that these figures disregard the exemption rate. Indeed, there are exemptions for bodies of water and therefore when there is an exemption, these figures can not be included in the calculation. And these exemptions are relatively important. Please remember “one third”. In fact, one third of the surface water within EU are exempt from the good ecological state for 2015 and about one third of countries within the European Union have more than 50% of their water mass exempt from the achievement of this good ecological status by 2015. In summary, I would like to remind you that regulation at the European level is rather liberal regulation. It aims to bind growth and sustainability. Sustainability is often referred to as green growth, which has strong principles that are often used elsewhere. The European case may serve as benchmark for regulation, including in Switzerland, where one can be inspired and which has many implementation methods of European law, in particular through the principle of subsidiarity. Even though it has common rules, their implementation at a local level depends on the history of the territory and policies and the form of law in these countries. Finally, although there has been progress, this is still insufficient from an environmental point of view as explained in the last episode by focusing on how the regime was still not fully integrated. Thank you. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
