Clean-groundwater law sails through Parliament[fr][de] 

On 12 December 2006 the European Parliament gave its formal green light to an agreement  reached in a last-resort conciliation with the Council in October on the groundwater-protection directive (EurActiv 19/10/06).

"More than half of the freshwater bodies in the EU are polluted and can never be cleaned up again," said Christa Klass MEP (EPP-ED, Germany) who was steering the dossier in Parliament. "This is why we must protect them better". 

In a key amendment, MEPs succeeded in broadening the scope of the directive to protection of groundwater "against pollution and deterioration" and not just "against pollution" as the Council had originally requested.

Substances regulated under the new measures are listed in an annex to the water- framework directive adopted in 2000. They include cyanide, arsenic, biocides and phytopharmaceutical substances.

In a concession to member states, Parliament agreed to take nitrate pollution from farming out of the text. The limit value of 50mg/l for nitrate pollution, laid down in the 1991 directive on nitrates, will therefore continue to apply.

After the 2009 deadline to transpose the directive into national law, member states will be required to take "all measures necessary to prevent inputs into groundwater of any hazardous substances". The Council had previously backed less specific wording, requiring that all measures necessary be taken to "aim to prevent" groundwater pollution.

Pesticide manufacturers at the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) welcomed the agreement as "pragmatic" but advised maintaining coherence with existing strict EU laws on authorisation of substances used in plant-protection products. Substances that have already been assessed and authorised, said ECPA, "should not be considered hazardous in the context of member state implementation measures under the new groundwater directive".

The conciliation agreement was welcomed by environmental groups. "Members of the European Parliament have successfully fought off attempts by governments to re-nationalise groundwater protection," said the EEB's EU Policy Director Stefan Scheuer. "They ensured that preventing pollution and achieving quality standards is robust and legally binding."