Belgium and Cyprus urged to review water permits

Belgium and Cyprus urged to review water permits. The European Commission started an infringement procedure by sending letters of formal notice to the Member States in December 2024. Belgium and Cyprus are not reviewing water permits for water abstraction or discharges regularly. Therefore, they are failing to comply with the Water Framework Directive. In the absence of a satisfactory response from both Member States, the European Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.

The Water Framework Directive requires Member States to implement basic measures to control different types of water abstraction, impoundment, point source discharge, diffuse sources liable to cause pollution, and any other significant adverse impacts on water quality. Member States are required to periodically review and update these controls to determine whether the measures in place still achieve their objectives. The European Commission has already started similar infringement procedures against the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia and Finland.

Lack of reviews in Belgium

In Belgium, the legislation of the Brussels-Capital, Flemish and Walloon regions respectively is not compliant with the Water Framework Directive. On water abstraction, these regional legislations do not always provide for a periodic review of the authorisation, or they set an interval for review which is too long (exceeding 12 years). Regarding the point source discharge, the intervals set by the three regional legislations between the periodic reviews of the authorisation are too long.

Not any reviews of water permits in Cyprus

In Cyprus, the national legislation does not impose any kind of periodic review, as required by the Directive. The Commission is therefore sending letters of formal notice to Belgium and Cyprus, which now have two months to respond and address the shortcomings raised by the Commission.