Final Approval the text of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive by the Council of Europe
The Council of the European Union approved the corrigendum and final text of the UWWT directive. This marks the final legislative process for endorsing the political agreement on the UWWT directive. The legislation will be published in the official Journal in the coming weeks and will enter into force by the end of this year ("Article 34 Entry into force and Application" ). All 27 Member States will then have to transpose the directive into their national legislations within 30 months ( 2 years and 1/2).
In addition to the political statements published during the Coreper I approval on 23 October, one additional political statement has been published by Bulgaria. Currently, 17 Member States submitted political statements accompanying the approval of the directive: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Estonia, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Slovenia. These political statements may indicate issues with the local implementation of this directive and may provide some talking points with these countries. The full text of these political statements are attached.
Industry associations be working to try to ensure a fair implementation of the directive. Notably, EFPIA is financing two projects to support fair deployment (cost distribution and questioning our share of micropollution).
EFPIA has also published a joint statement with AESGP on this (click here).