Council opposes Parliament on water and mercury[fr] 

• Cleaning EU waters

Discussions in Council focused mainly on the issue of pesticides, heavy metals and other substances in water, in particular the number of "priority hazardous" substances and their concentration limits in surface waters. 

Council decided not to accept Parliament's substantial increase in the number of priority hazardous substances and maintained the Commission's orginal list of 33.

The Commission believes that a "tough battle" can be expected with Parliament on the issue.

• Dealing with mercury

Essentially rejecting Parliament's first-reading vote to begin the export ban in 2010, Council maintained the Commission's original date of 2011 and did not discuss the Parliament's proposal for an additional import ban that would effectively eliminate the EU's trade in mercury. Council also decided not to extend the ban to include mercury compounds. 

On storage, Council agreed that further work needs to be done to find a safe method for disposal of the substance, and decided that legal requirements must first be adopted before final storage can take place. The idea of using salt mines as temporary and potentially permanent storage facilities remains a possibility.

Apart from the issue of storage, the agreement reached in Council is not likely to receive a warm welcome during the second reading in Parliament. The Commission expects the dossier to be decided in conciliation. 

The European Environment Bureau (EEB) expressed "deep regret" over the Council's position on water quality standards, saying that: "This allows EU nations to claim that their surface waters have reached the required 'good chemical status', while they may actually still be heavily polluted."

EEB also argued that the Council "weakened key provisions in EU law to reduce pollution at source. According to existing legislation, industrial polluters must limit their discharges into the water to respect the water law's ecosystem goals. The Council has now deleted a pivotal reference in this Directive which would make industrial polluters responsible for limiting their own discharges."

Concerning mercury, the Zero Mercury Campaign considers the non-inclusion of mercury compounds in the export ban a "loophole" that would allow "hundreds of tonnes of mercury to be exported indirectly from the EU".

On the issue of storage, Euro Chlor, which represents the European chlor-alkali industry, has stated that "European producers operating mercury electrolysis cells were ready to complete a voluntary agreement endorsed by the Commission for safe, permanent underground storage. It would provide a viable solution to the fate of 9,600 tonnes of surplus metal from 44 plants scheduled to be phased out by 2020."