Other water quality sector specific legislation
The marine “strategy”
Three directives concern other aspects of water law and specific water quality considerations, i.e. marine waters, drinking waters and bathing waters.
The marine “strategy”
Directive 2008/56/EC establishing a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy, also called the “Marine Strategy Framework Directive” makes it a “priority” to achieve or maintain “good environmental status in the Community’s marine environment” by 2020 (Article 1 and para. 8 of the preamble) by laying down a transparent and consistent legislative framework, which is not its only or less notable resemblance with the Water Framework Directive.
Directive 2008/56/EC applies to all “marine waters” on which a Member State has and/or exercises its jurisdiction or rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) as well as coastal waters, if in the subject matter of the WFD in so far as particular aspects of the environmental status of the marine environment are concerned are not already addressed therein or in other Union legislation (Article 2 and Article 4(1)). Member States may however take account of the specificities of the marine regions established by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, i.e. the Baltic Sea, the North East Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea and of those of the sub regions defined within them (Article 4).
Each Member State develops, in respect of each concerned region or sub region, a marine strategy for its marine waters (Article 5(1)). To this end, it makes an initial assessment of the essential features and characteristics and of the current environmental status of those waters, an analysis of the predominant pressures and impact thereon including human activities, as well as of discernible trends, and an economic and social analysis of the use of those waters and of the cost of degradation of the marine environment (Article 8(1)). It then establishes a comprehensive set of environmental targets and associated indicators corresponding to their good environmental status (Article 10). Based on those preparatory steps, which were planned for 2014, monitoring programmes are adopted for the ongoing assessment of the environmental status by reference to defined environmental objectives (Article 11).