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2.6 Water Regulation in the European Union according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD)

Course video 19 of 54

Businesses that manage water are guided by property law and public policy designed to define and coordinate all the demands on the resource. This second module aims to better understand the complexity of these two bodies of law through the framework of the Institutional Resource Regime (IRR). This framework is presented and then applied to two case studies (Swiss and European) to understand the rules governing water management in these territories. Finally, we will go beyond this framework to address the implementation of these rules by looking at examples of how the law is applied and examples of localised regulation. The module is concluded by a quiz worth 20% of the final grade. You must have at least 80% of the responses correct to pass the module

Water Resources Management and Policy

Университет Женевы

Water management today is faced with new challenges such as climate change or the effects of human activity. Public and private stakeholders who are active in this field must develop new ways to better manage the water cycle "as a whole". The objective of this MOOC is to develop an understanding of the problems related to water management. Firstly, this course will define a resource and, more specifically, the resource of water. It will look at how water is used and the activities associated with it as well as any potential conflicts. The course will look at water management in detail through the analysis of the different types of rights and obligations associated with, for example, the development of a multi-sectorial regulation system or a watershed management approach. By the end of this course, our aim is to enable you to: 1) Identify the main issues and strategies linked to water resource management 2) Acquire the key reading material needed to understand the many variables (environmental, institutional and political) which affect water and which, in terms of management, may require adjustment. This course was developed by the Geneva Water Hub. Alongside researchers from the University of Geneva from a range of faculties, researchers from other universities and research centres will be involved in this course. Practitioners who deal daily with the political dimension of water management will also input into the course. This MOOC is designed for all those interested in the water sector. Prior training is not necessary to follow our program. The findings presented in this course can be easily reapplied to different contexts and to different scales of analysis. This MOOC is supported by the Geneva Water Hub and the University of Geneva along with the MOOC in « Ecosystem Services: a Method for Sustainable Development » (www.coursera.org/learn/ecosystem-services) and the one in "International Water Law" (www.coursera.org/learn/droit-eau). This course is funded by the Global Programme Water Initiatives of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). This course is also available in French : www.coursera.org/learn/gestion-eau

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Получаемые навыки

Policy Analysis, International Law, International Relations, Law

Преподаватели

Christian Bréthaut
Assistant Professor
Géraldine Pflieger
Professeure associée

Текст видео

[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]

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