Over the past decades, European policy has focused its efforts on improving water quality, ensuring water services and preserving ecosystems, as well as encouraging sustainable water use. Recently, the Commission and Member States have undertaken comprehensive reporting with results indicating that water quality is gradually improving in Europe thanks to urban waste water treatment and reducing the pollution from agricultural sources.
Nevertheless, water-related problems persist in the 130,000 water bodies accounted for in the European Union. Worth noting are chemical pollution, excessive pressures in particular from agriculture, and the myriad obstacles to natural flow in rivers. The Commission understands that problems should be addressed at the source and the efficiency of water resource management needs improvement.
We also face new challenges, such as emerging contaminants, pharmaceutical products, plastics and microplastics, of which 150,000 to 500,000 tonnes end up in the ocean every year. Moreover, climate change will have serious negative effects on ecosystems and human health and will exacerbate the impacts associated with extreme phenomena such as droughts and floods. We also expect that in the near future Europe will be even more concerned about water quantity.
The Commission understands that problems should be addressed at the source and the efficiency of water resource management needs improvement.
The European Commission's report on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive identifies the key strengths, improvements and weaknesses of the second river basin management plans in Spain. In the case of Spain we may note a better knowledge of water bodies and the existing pressures, with more and higher quality information. The report highlights, however, 25 important recommendations which include furthering international cooperation, improving monitoring networks and the methodologies to assess the status of water bodies, expand the use of flow meters, implement more hydromorphological measures such as ecological flows, ensure that the needs of protected habitats and species are linked to water management, and justify better and make better use of the exemptions in the directive.
Regarding the implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, even though more than ten years have passed since the final deadline for compliance (2005), Spain still does not have adequate treatment for the effluent of more than three million people. In fact, more than 500 agglomerations still fail to comply (totally or partially) with the treatment requirements in the directive.
Ultimately, even with the support of European funds to implement the directives, the challenge of achieving full compliance and reaching environmental objectives by 2027 is still a huge one. The European Commission will continue to support Member States and promote technical exchanges to ensure the established goals are achieved.
To ensure the health of European citizens and the planet, the European Commission is working on what President Ursula von der Leyen has called the European Green Deal. Among the objectives of the Green Deal we may note leading international efforts to reduce biodiversity loss and achieve zero pollution, something that will require a cross-cutting approach to stop the degradation and pollution of our environment, particularly at the source. The European Commission wants a social change to make Europe a world leader in circular economy and clean technologies, key elements to develop the future economic, social and environmental model of the continent, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. This way we will ensure the sustainable use of resources, generating opportunities, innovating and creating jobs.