EU Water Law

The implementation of Directive 91/271/EEC has been notoriously laborious in many Member States as a result of it requiring large investment by most municipalities. In 2004, the Commission published a report on the implementation of the Directive (COM (2004) 248) wherein it appears that discharges of urban waste-water could be the second source of eutrophication of water bodies and could be responsible for up to 50% of the global impact in spite of the efforts deployed.

In 2002, with the exception of Germany and the Netherlands, only 52% of the agglomerations discharging their water into sensitive areas meant that more stringent treatment was required and only 387 of the 556 counties of more than 100,000 inhabitants had treatment systems which were judged satisfactory. The report also gave a summary of the “numerous” procedures under way before the CJEU.

Thus, as late as in 2013 and in 2016, France was found to be in breach without even being in a position to discuss its alleged failure to collect and apply proper treatment to urban waste waters in a number of overseas agglomerations (Case C-23/13 Commission v France (available only in French)) and even in mainland agglomerations (Case C-314/15 Commission v France (available only in French)). Certain Member States could not even argue against being found in breach of all of the above-mentioned major requirements for dozens of agglomerations (see, e.g., Case C-565/10 Commission v Italy (available in French); Case C-85/13 Commission v Italy (available in French)). Even just for non-compliance in the performance of waste-water treatment in two facilities, the CJEU ordered a lump sum payment of 2,000,000 euro and periodic payments of 2,800 euros per day of delay (Case C-576/11 Commission v Luxembourg).