MEPs stand by plans to ban chemicals in water

The European Parliament’s environment committee has reinstated a list of priority hazardous substances to be banned from water by 2025, putting it on a collision course with those EU member states which had already rejected the proposal a year ago.

Voting on the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on water quality standards on Monday (5 May), the environment committee said a further 31 water pollutants, including dioxins and PCBs, should be added to the Commission’s proposed list.

Under the draft directive, substances in the list would either have to meet EU water quality standards by 2015 or be banned outright from surface water by 2025 if they are classified as “hazardous”.  

Out of the 33 substances contained in the Commission’s initial list, twelve were already classified as “priority hazardous substances” to be phased out by 2025. But MEPs said a further ten, including dioxins and PCB, should be added to this list, reinstating a proposal tabled by Parliament a year earlier when it voted on the report during first reading (EURACTIV 23/05/07). They also insisted that member states use the best available water treatment techniques in special ‘mixing zones’ where pollutant concentrations exceeding EU limits would be tolerated.

Speaking after the vote, French MEP Anne Laperrouze (ALDE), who is steering the proposal in Parliament, said the Commission should now “carefully assess” the committee’s proposed list of additional substances and “take a final decision on whether or not there is a need to classify them as priority or priority hazardous substances”. 

“The Commission must tell us quickly if the concerns we raised on some additional substances are justified or not,” she said.

By increasing the list of “hazardous” substances, MEPs placed the Parliament on a collision course with the Council, which rejected Parliament’s list in a first reading vote last June (EURACTIV 29/06/07).

Laperrouze said a delegation of MEPs, member state and Commission representatives would meet after the Parliament’s next plenary session in a so-called ‘trialogue’ meeting to find a compromise. If not, a last-chance conciliation procedure will be launched to decide whether parts of the proposed directive can be maintained or whether it should be dropped altogether.

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