 Good morning! I hope everybody didn't start. First of all, I'd like to welcome all the participants who will be with us today at this webinar on water concessions under the project strategy and environment strategy and action plan in Bosnia Herzegovina. I hope that as far as I can see, we already have a lot of participants. More will join. I want to welcome everybody present here in this webinar. Good morning! We've had some technical problems, but I hope you managed to hear me. We will start with the webinar on water concessions in Bosnia Herzegovina, which is organized under the environmental strategy and action plan in Bosnia Herzegovina. I'd like to greet all the participants and all those who will join us at some later point. For those with whom we had no opportunity to meet before, I would like to introduce myself and my colleague, who will be the moderator. My name is Selma Cengiz from the Institute for Hydrotechnic and Mr. Svetlana Lolić from the University in Banyaluka, Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics. We are a part of the team that is currently implementing the project of environmental strategy and action plans and we will say a few words about it later on. Besides two of us, there are also colleagues who are actually financing the project from the Stockholm Environmental Institute, as well as our expert, who will be the panelists during this webinar and who will share various experiences related to the water concessions in Spain, Sweden and Croatia. These are Mr. Peter Rudberg, Mr. Pedro Brofao and Ms. Alida Ban Pavlovic. I'd like to welcome them, as well as our colleagues from Sweden. Since this webinar is a part of the whole environmental strategy and action plan, I will say a few words about the project as such. The preparations for this project started a long time ago, in 2018, when the entity governments and the Berjko district government applied to Sweden for assistance in developing this strategy. After this, Embassy of Sweden turned to the Swedish Environmental Institute and asked them to develop a feasibility study and the project preparation document for this strategy in July 2019. After the document had been prepared, all the governments and all the levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted this document and thus approved the project and it officially started in September 2019 and it's expected to close in April 2020. This strategy document will include strategies and action plans for all four jurisdictions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that means the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, Berjko district and the level of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This strategy, its implementation, will last 32 months most likely as for the implementers. The main implementing agency is the Stockholm Institute, the headquarters of the Stockholm Institute for Environment in Sweden and the office of the Stockholm Environmental Institute in Tallinn and local partners and local leading experts in the area. Partners in this project are the delegation of European Union in Bosnia-Herzegovina and non-governmental organizations. As for financing, the project is financed by the government of Sweden. The strategy itself will be a document that will include strategies and action plans for all four jurisdictions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and it will include all the segments that are required for environment according to the EU legislation. That means water, waste, biodiversity, air quality, climate change and energy, chemical safety, sustainable resource management including forests, fish stock and minerals and environmental management which is basically the horizontal policy. So this was in brief about the project within which we plan to hold today's seminar. I will ask Ms. colleague Svetlana Lolić to give us a brief overview of the basic information on the status of waters in Bosnia-Herzegovina and legal framework applied to the concessions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then we will proceed in accordance with the agenda. Svetlana, thank you. First of all I'd like to thank you for joining the work of this webinar. There are more than 100 of us right now and I would like to thank our panelists who will participate today. My name is Svetlana Lolić and I am professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. As Salma has said, two of us are consultants for strategy and action plan in the water sector. Now I will share my presentation with you. I hope you can see everything. Salma, can you just confirm that my presentation is shared? Yes, it is. As Salma has said, in developing this strategy and action plan we got divided into seven working groups and we are a member of the water working group. What's the situation with waters in Bosnia-Herzegovina? I am a big fan of this old saying that picture speaks 1000 words. This is a map of hydro-morphological status of rivers in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Blue are the best quality waters, green are slightly modified and the worst class are the waters of the fifth class, the red rivers. When we look at this map, we can be relatively satisfied, not completely, look at how the things look in Montenegro, but our waters are still relatively of good quality. And what we are trying to do now is to keep them that way or improve their status. The point and what is the requirement of the European director is to achieve the good status. What's the status in other countries? Just to put this in context, how wealthy we are in terms of water resources and how our waters are still of quite good quality. If you look at the hydro-morphological status in Germany, I've presented it here, in order to keep things as they are at least. One of the ways is to develop this strategy and action plan. This water management aspect is very important. Waters are very susceptible to pressures on both quality and quantity. We have inadequate legal and institutional framework for approximation of the EU legislation. Other problems that we are faced with include unsustainable use of water resources, and in recent times we are all witnesses to some extreme hydrological events. We had some floods and droughts. And one of the main problems in Bosnia Herzegovina is, of course, financial issue. The water sector in maintenance of the water sector requires a lot of funds. When we were thinking of what will be the topic of our webinar, we decided on the concessions. Why? Because that is the trickiest question. A question where the working groups will have two most opposing opinions. On one hand, we have to balance the necessary economic development that requires concessions, while on the other hand we have the protection of environment. And in many examples, we saw that concessions lead to negative changes to the ecosystem and it harms and undermines the environment and habitats. The water management falls within the competencies of the entities and the Borchko district. The laws exist at all four levels. We have the law on concessions of Bosnia Herzegovina and we have laws on the entities of the Republic of Satska and the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina and of Borchko district. In addition, in the Federation there are also cantonal laws on concessions and all these levels there are secondary regulations. At the level of Bosnia Herzegovina, I deliberately said for all levels the concession, what's the definition of concession, because it is not consistent to all laws. They are close but not identical. The concession is the right that the concedent awards for the purpose of providing construction of infrastructure or services and exploitation of natural resources within the deadlines and other conditions agreed. At the level of Bosnia Herzegovina there is the commission for concessions, which is a joint commission and it proposes awarding concessions for those goods or assets that are located on the territory of both entities or the Republic or the Borchko district, when the asset is not located in only one administrative jurisdiction and the decision is made by the Council of Ministers and has to be ratified by the Parliament of Bosnia Herzegovina. At the level of Bosnia Herzegovina it's a rather complicated procedure and the contract on concession is signed for 30 years and under special conditions for 50 years if construction of a facility or appliance requires longer time. At the level of the Federation there is also the commission for concessions of the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina and the decision is made by the government of the Federation on proposal by the line ministry and depending on the object of concession, the competency for awarding concessions may lie on the cantonal level or the Federation. Cantons are competent for water resources when it comes to construction of small or mini hydropower plants of up to five kilowatts or use of water streams that spread on the territory of two or more cantons or construction of small or mini hydropower plants of larger capacities. Here again concessions are awarded for 30 years or in special cases for 50. At the level of Borchko district there is the commission for concessions of Borchko district, the department that is competent for the area of concession proposes to the mayor and the mayor passes the decision and which has to be approved by the assembly of Borchko district. The contract again is for 30 years. In Republika Srpska, the concession contract is awarded to 50 years. It's a bit longer. The commission for concessions of Republika Srpska gives on proposal and the final decision is passed by the government of Republika Srpska. The law on concessions recommends that the concessions, they recommend the concessions as it leads to economic development and provides a framework for attracting foreign and domestic investments and at the same time it improves the transparency of the concession process and increases efficiency and long term sustainability of concession projects and responsible management of natural wealth and public goods. Currently at the registry of concessions at the webpage of the concession commission, we can see that 328 concessions have been issued. Most of them are for exploitation of construction rock and for use of agricultural land but concessions for exploitation of water come third. Since we are talking here about water sector, I also wanted to mention this data for mini hydropower plants. There were 28 mini hydropower plants in the incentive systems and 138 concession contracts were signed for Republika Srpska in the whole of Bosnia Herzegovina. This number exceeds 400. In all laws on concessions, they define what can be conceded. These definitions slightly differ between the Federation and Republika Srpska. When it comes to water, its construction, upgrading and use of canals and forks, hydropower facilities, construction and use of hydropower accumulations, fisheries, amelioration system and systems for extraction of different materials from water streams and water use for technological processes in economy. The concessions are awarded in the following way. First, a tender or public invitation is issued or sometimes the interested party may start the initiative to receive a concession. We are witnesses in recent times of a large number of campaigns by NGOs mostly and local communities, local population who are objecting or even filing complaints against the concessions, starting the lawsuits against the concessions. When awarding concessions, the rational use of the natural wealth has to be respected and the environment needs to be protected in accordance with the appointment. These are the two points that proved to be, I won't say completely non-complied with, but there is a serious undermining of the ecosystem when constructing mini hydropower plants and the minimum flow is not secured, which of course destroys the biotech analysis. I will also mention that recently a declaration was adopted in Republika Srpska, a similar declaration was adopted in the federation last year. I want to congratulate the representatives of NGOs who started this initiative. This declaration requires the stopping of any new concessions until the already awarded concessions really operate in the way they should to re-examine the influence, the impact of the MHPPs. What needs to be done in future is that the law on concessions at the level of what we have to govern is harmonized with the EU directive on concessions so that we first of all don't have these different definitions and to make the concession awarding process transparent and to keep regular updates. Available to all that clearly defines the allocation of revenues. This would be all for me. I have exhausted my time as for the legal aspects of concessions in both near Herzegovina. Herzegovina, I want to mention and to invite you if you are interested in participating in a working group of Waters, you have mine and Selma's addresses. So please join us in developing this strategy and actual plan. Thank you Selma. Thank you Svetlana. I hope you can hear me now. This was a brief overview of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in this regard and now the agenda suggests that we should discuss the topic of concessions, experience, social benefits and challenges from the perspective of certain member states. We will hear the experience from Sweden, Spain and Croatia. The first panelist is Mr. Peter Huberbeck and before I say a few words about him and you will see his CV on the screen but before I introduce Mr. Huberbeck. Just a logistical point please. During presentations you can send your questions on the bottom of your screen. There is a box Q&A. So at any point if any question occurs to you, you feel free to send your question in through the Q&A box and then we will read your questions and our experts will try to answer them during the discussion session. Good morning Mr. Peter. Mr. Huberbeck is a researcher working at SEI. He is a lead expert for water and the B.I.H. is up to 2020, 30 plus. He holds a PhD from beginning and university in the Netherlands where he investigated environmental policy implementation and learning in water governance. His experience and focuses on climate change impacts and adoption. With the focus on the water and wastewater sector and he also is engaged in researching interactions between the energy and environmental regulatory machines in relation to renewable electricity production. May I ask you now Peter to share with us Swedish experience on water concessions. Great Selma. Thank you very much. It's great to be here and to present and to be able to interact with you all. And I'm also looking forward to the panel discussion and receiving your questions and being able to explore some of the issues that might be more of interest to you. So we can change the slide please. So when we talk about water concession it really goes to the heart of this societal question of what to do with our common water resources. And basically I mean as we heard from Svetlana as well the water concession grants an actor the right to use and modify the public resource. And many times when there's a decision to grant water concession or not the economic benefits for the actor are usually tangible and easy to calculate. So it could be for example if we're talking about irrigation for agriculture it's relatively easy to calculate how it would be increases in sales and also the quality of agricultural products. If you were able to irrigate or if we're talking about electricity production with hydropower that there is a market for electricity and you could calculate how much electricity you would you would produce in hydropower station. And you could make some estimates which would be relatively accurate. When it comes to environmental accumulative third party and public impacts it's much harder to assess or even know what they're going to be. And it's even harder to monetize them because there's usually not a market for these types of services. So that's that's an intrinsic challenge that we have when we have to think about what to do with the water resources if we're going to grant a concession for different uses or not. And it's important because basically one use of water can be very compatible with another. So we're talking about you know what are the costs and benefits it doesn't have to be in in you know in euros but thinking about what we need and want as a society and we can switch slides things. So this is an example of being the elephant in the north of Sweden, which is a nationally protected river where there's virtually no new water concessions that are granted and none that have been granted. And as you can see this is a scenic landscape you have high environmental values as well as good possibilities for tourism and fishing and hiking. But of course you could have, you know exploited this river for hydropower, for example which is one of the big things we do in Sweden, and can we change the slide again please. So this is a photo from the Lule River, which is a bit further north, and what we can see is a flow depleted river section, because of diversion for hydropower production so basically this stretch of river is dry all year around except for emergency situations when they have to release water. And basically during the last century in Sweden, the Lule River and several other of the large river systems in Sweden were changed. Basically, they were changed from ecosystems to electricity production systems. So we have lots of hydropower production, and basically the rivers have been completely modified. And this has a very high impact on the landscape. This had a big impact on the indigenous summer population. In the photo I don't know if you can see it but there's actually three reindeer walking around on the depleted riverbed. And basically it's lots of challenges for the summer population with their cultural landscapes and their heritage. And then we have the river and ecosystem is not at all what it was before. So the impacts of granting water possessions for different uses can be very, very high. But at the same time, Lule River in this case, it produces roughly 10% of Sweden's total electricity consumption. So it's very valuable for the electric system in Sweden and for renewable electricity production. And then we switch the slide please. So in 1973, there were some researchers that came up with this term wicked problem, which is basically saying that, you know, there are no optimal technical or scientific solutions that can be found. And these are, you know, very difficult to account all relevant factors. It's very much political, legal, ethical, and economic preferences and tradeoffs that are the basis for agreeing to or rejecting different decisions or development past. You know, of course we should have evaluations and scientific data and to, you know, impact assessments and so on, but it's not going to solve the issue and ensure that everybody agrees to it. So, so these preferences very much are the ones that we have to discuss and come to some sort of agreement. And, you know, preferences are open for discussion and legislation is open to some level of interpretation as well. So I have this photo if we switch slides. And this is just, you know, a simplistic, simplistic illustration but it's, it's, it kind of goes to the point of saying, you know, what's the best color. Well, it depends, we can of course have different opinions and, you know, I like blue. But we're not going to find a definite answer to, you know, what's the best way in every case and, and, you know, somehow we have to, we have to find a way of dealing with this, and maybe not, you know, expecting, you know, science and, and other actors or government actors to have this definite answer that that we're all going to agree to. So if we change again the slide. So this is just, I mean, said Lana also spoke about this and these are, you know, some of these guiding principles that that we can use in cases where we're dealing with wicked problems. And it's this issue of transparency, which is very important deliberation, what we're doing right now discussion and, you know, having different ideas. Also the rule of law, ensuring that the legislation in place both in the country but also from, you know, from the, from the EU, the ones that apply are actually followed if if there's requirements for an environmental impact assessment. If it's done, if there's requirements for minimum flows. It has to, it has to be done as well I mean those are basics that just have to function correctly otherwise. It's, it's very hard to do, you know, to ensure that what we're doing is in the interest of society. So this issue with water concessions which I think that Lana also mentioned, sorry the case in in Boston had to go be nice this issue of time limitation and being able to adjust. And this is also very much related to the difficulty of knowing what the cumulative effects will be what the un, you know, unknowns are out there because it's very hard to know exactly what's going to happen if you are not taking out water or putting dams in places. So you have these unforeseen impacts you have a cumulative effects and then all of us have to deal with climate change. And that is, is making it much more difficult to know what's going to happen and how you know what we need to do. What we're used to from historically is not, it's not correct anymore for the future so we can't look back, you know 100 years or 60 years and say, this is how how this river or this is how much water we've had traditionally so we can project towards the future and know that's going to be the case. It's not going to be that case. It's going to be different, and we need to adjust to that. So one issue that I push for a lot. And I think, I mean we're talking about environmental strategy here. So strategic planning is, I think very important that this case, and I'll come back to that. And then I think also this principle of placing the burden of proof on the actor seeking a water conception is also very, very important. So the three last ones are particularly strategic planning and placing the burden of proof on the actor seeking water discussion. I'm going to come back to that later in the presentation and give examples from Sweden, and I'm also giving one example from from from the US. So if we can move on please. So, in the background of the decision to grant a water possession or not, we do have some you know rules that are starting to apply to Boston heads ago we know. So it's in the process of approximation. I mean, it's, it started to apply and transpose, for example the water EU water framework directive, we have the SAVA river basin authority set up and working and that's part of this approximation implementation. So it's really, I mean, three, two or three overriding objectives in the EU water framework directive and I think sweat Lana mentioned one and that's to reach good status of all water bodies. But actually, which is particularly relevant for Boston heads because you have such good status of the water body. And then there's this issue of non deterioration. It's, it's not really enough to say okay we're going to, we're going to get good status everywhere that means that all these blue rivers that's done a show. Go to green because then there's this deterioration from the better stages right now, then good. And that's also something that the water framework directive deals with. And that issue of good potential in highly modified water bodies, which are the ones that right now have been severely modified and I mean in Boston heads ago we know you already have for example large hydro power stations to dance. Those would be the cases where you would look to reaching good potential, or it could be harbors or it could be different as where you've already modified the status of the water. Historically, for for a good reason, and you have to reach good potential. So, if it is possible with exemptions, but they have to be very well well detailed and justified, and it's really this issue, you know, do the societal objectives over rule, you know, is it, is it so important and valuable to modify the water. We get so much benefits as a society that, then, you know, if we can show that, and if it's well detailed and justified then, you know, it is possible there are cases there's been cases in, for example, Austria where the commission actually tried and the court tried. It was a higher power development project. And in the end they said okay well it was well justified in this case and, and you know it was renewable electricity production so on so it's not impossible, but it has to be very well detailed and justified. And more lately, it's this issue of do no significant harm, which has come up and is becoming a very important issue in the EU. And we have, for example, the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation, which is, if you know all this with the COVID, it's all this money that EU is ensuring to, you know, to deliver to EU member states that have been hit to improve the economy and to restart the economy. And basically, they've had this commission had these technical guidance notes on, you know, how, how, how should we apply this do no significant harm to ensure that this funding doesn't go into sectors and areas that will actually undermine the environmental objectives of the Union. And basically, they, they specifically I mean we're talking a lot about hydropower. So I know that's one of the big issues here but they actually in these technical guidance notes, they do actually say that, for example, if you know it is I'm reading from from from the text, and it says an activity is considered to do significant harm to the protection and reduction of biodiversity and ecosystems, if it is significantly the detrimental to the good condition and resilience of ecosystems, and detrimental or detrimental to the conservation status of habitats and species, including those of Union interest. And they specify, for instance, if the hydropower plant requiring building a dam on an untouched area success, the impact of the dam would be evaluated against a scenario where the concerned river remains in its natural states, the rather than considering a different possible alternative use of the area. So if you're, if you think, if you have to see if, if a proposed activity does significant harm, you're actually comparing these new activity with leaving the river as it is in an unaltered status so it's, it's quite significant requirements. And then you also have on a broader level, this, it's still a draft, but it's the tax taxonomy regulation and it's looking at it's trying again to funnel into green investments in the EU. And they also speak about, you know, they've got many things, but hydropower is one of them, and they, they, they also say, you know, construction of new hydropower plants, it has to be conceived, designed and located. So it does not entail any deterioration or significant deterioration of the specific water body. So again, it's, it's moving on an EU level it's moving towards quite significant requirements to be able to say okay we're going to have new developments in place be it's hydropower, which is one of the topics we're talking about, or it could be irrigation, and so on. So, so, so this is that, you know, back from the EU, it's moving towards, towards this quite strict requirements, if we're going to give new concessions. So if we can change the slide again please. So when we're talking about, and I think it's very suitable since we're talking about. Yes. Just wanted to thank you for this very interesting presentation just to warn you of the time. How much time is it five minutes. Okay. Now, in the beginning was 25 I have my timing here but okay. I'll finish quickly. So, so it's this issue where should we have restrictions to grant a new water concessions. So, you know, if we have an area with water scarcity already now. Maybe it's not the best idea to give concessions for increased irrigation agriculture. So if we have water bodies with high status and with endemic aquatic species, maybe those stretches and areas and water bodies are not the best place to construct new hydropower in Sweden. So if we're moving. We have a sensitivity planning and basically in Sweden it's, it's an ongoing process and it's looking. I mean the basics is saying that no large scale hydropower plants should be refurbished. And if it's possible, the capacity should be increased. And I think here it's important to distinguish between large scale dam hydropower and small scale run of the river hydropower. So the smaller ones don't have this capacity to regulate. Basically, it's, it's very similar to other variable renewable electricity sources such as wind power biofuels or or actually biofuels you can control but wind power and solar power. It's very similar in the sense that it produces when it produces in the case of run of the river hydropower it produces as the water flows with large scale dam hydropower, which has a bigger impact. So we have this capacity of actually regulating the production in accordance to the needs of electricity consumption because that's changing all the time. And you need to have the capacity to regulate production to be in line with that. So basically in Sweden, the biggest ones that strategy says, you know, let's let's refurbish them and increase the capacity and the small scale we have, you know, around 2000 hydropower stations in Sweden 200 of those are the big ones and the rest 1,700 1,800 are small. And for all of those, it has to be good ecological stages, and that's, you know, phone up passages, minimum flow, and in many cases, it will lead to dam removal as well because it's just not worth continuing to produce if you put on these strict environmental requirements. So there's virtually no new hydropower plants and we have these national no go source, for example being the relevant with just example I gave before. So if we change the slide. So this is just an example that the darker the color, the more valuable is the river basin the hydropower production in that river basis so this is the map of Sweden. So you can see how they're looking the ones that are lighter in color or white are the ones where there's less value for the electric system, and, you know, more, more energy, sorry, more environmental measures would be required in those areas. If we switch the slide again. So this is just the time scales so it's over the next 20 years, the bluer the color that closely in time that all the hydropower stations in that area are going to be tried and it goes to court the blow and so on on the more red, reddish colors are lately that's towards the end of the 2030s, but it's an example and it's big process going on in Sweden right now and where it's, you know, we can we can we can discuss if the strategy is correct or if the how, you know, if it should be more or less of something but at least it's this this way of thinking which I think is this is positive. Then if we switch. So this is placing the burden of proof on the actor seeking a water concession. And basically, it's just this issue that you know we have environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment directives that apply to new particularly new energy developments in the country and that will actually in those studies potentially affect the stakeholders should have an possibility to ask for reasonable studies and explorations and if we find that you know it's maybe not the best decision. Of course it should be an acceptable option, not to grant it's a concession in that particular even though we've started working towards that. So if we switch again. So this is an example from the US, where they have this process it's non federal hydropower projects, time limits, and basically the high, if, even if you've had a hydropower station before and right now they're in the process it's it's ongoing in the US. The one concession ends, if the actor wants to continue to produce hydropower for example in that basin they have to show that this is actually the best option for this basin. And you have to evaluate different options which could be environmental hiking recreation, and also of course ensure that it's in line with existing environmental legislation. And with this process, virtually all hydropower stations in the US are modified and they are various stations that are removed. And if we give an example for switch, and I'm almost finishing now. So this is the Sturgeon River in Michigan, an area with high environmental and recreational values, and you know they had to to apply for a new concession and expired. And it just came to the conclusion in this process that actually that the other values of juices of this river basin were actually higher value than continuing hydropower production. So with that, if we switch again, I'm finished, feel free to contact me, it's been great to be able to transfer you. Thank you, Selma, I'll hand it over to you. Thank you Peter for this very interesting presentation. We already have some questions in our box in our chat box, we will leave it for the question and answer session so we will ask you to share some of the information with us. Our second panelist who will present is Miss Alida Ban Pavlovich. This is Alida Ban Pavlovich is an expert from Croatia. She has over 20 years of experience in numerous projects in the process of approximation to the EU and she worked in the countries in the region such as Serbia, both in Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Armenia. She was a participant in the project related to compliance with the harmonization of the Croatian legislation with the EU legislation. Those were the CARDS project strategy for environmental law approximation and supporting the accession process of the candidate countries. Miss Alida, since 2012, she's the key senior legal experts and long term project of European Commission, the framework contract for conformity checking. And in May 2019, she was named the head of Department for Environmental Law Policy and Economics at Oikon Company. Miss Alida, welcome. And I will now kindly ask you to give the presentation that we agreed on and that you had prepared. It has to do with the concessions for water use and the experiences of Croatia. Thank you for being Miss Tengic and thank you for this very kind introduction and thank you to all the panelists and Professor Volich and this Peter Rydberg for these very interesting information and I will be happy to follow on. We can hear her. Everything is fine. Miss Alida, we cannot hear you right now. Can you turn your microphone? Can you hear me now? Thank you. I propose that I turn off my camera because my internet connection is unstable and everything will be much better if I switch off my video. Miss Tengic, thank you for this kind introduction. Thank you to the previous panelists, Professor Volich and Mr. Peter for mentioning these very important things that are related to concessions and water protection and I will follow up on that in my short presentation. My presentation is quite complex in terms of nomo technology and I don't think I will have time to go through it. I will quickly go through some of the pages to try to share some of the information that are not necessarily found here. As a person with many years of experience in harmonization of national legislation with EU legislation, this is the first point that is important to be mentioned. It was important for Croatia. Our countries have had hundreds of years of tradition in water protection as opposed to some other possibly countries and newer generation of EU member countries who passed their first laws on protection of water in the 90s and established the first institutions. I mean the Baltic Tigers in Bulgaria and Romania, they joined the EU much earlier than we did without having the legislation. Croatia has been through a very difficult period of transposition and harmonization of the existing Croatian legislation and institutions. In the attempt to comply with the EU requirements but I will mention some details later on. According to the constitution of Croatia, water in nature is considered a good of interest for Croatia and enjoys special protection. The ways how the water can be used and utilized in Croatia and the restrictions of these rights are determined by law. We have this right to general use of water, which says that everybody is allowed to use water for their personal needs in the quantities and in ways they do not exclude others and this applies only to the surface waters and the first layer of groundwater. We must mention the resolution of the European Parliament right to water, declaring the right to water and sanitation of fundamental human rights. However, the legal organization regulates the water beyond this limit and we have order of priorities for the purposes of use of water and all these rights can be restricted in extreme situations as it happens when there is a temporary shortage of water. And there are two main laws that are applicable in Croatia. That's the law on the waters as the lexicalis and law and if something is not regulated there, it applies the law on concessions as the lexicalis. I see that some panelists are complaining that they cannot hear me. We have some interruptions, but it's fine. As you can see the numbers of the official gazettes, these are very recent laws. The law on what was adopted in 2019, demanded in 2020, and we have this special regulation on the use of water. What I'd like to share with you, which is not on the slide, was this procedure of harmonization. It was quite problematic for Croatia. We didn't have a perfect intersectoral cooperation. Responsibility for water is divided between environment, water, which is with the ministry. We had this strong agency for water protection. So we had to apply horizontal coordination with respect to other directives like conspire, habitats, and others, strategic environmental impact assessment. We at some point lost our way and Croatia got exhausted in this process of transposition. We were trying to patch up. We did the patchwork transposition. And back, maybe it would have been wiser if we sat together as a cross sectoral team and opened a word document and wrote it all from the beginning. While we were exhausting ourselves financially and in terms of human capacities, working with all these capacities in the transposition process, we failed to pay good enough attention to the establishment and the improvement of the instruments. Very quickly, we found ourselves in the situation that our regulations are sufficiently approximated, but the institutions were not able to implement these demanding and expensive directives. The directive on potable drinking water and for the sanitary waters are very expensive. And we got lost a little bit in terms of financial and human research capacities. And that received information from the Ministry that implementation of these directives, the drinking water and urban wastewater, that by the end of the transition periods, we've spent 28 billion kuna. Today, in view of the European Union, they are well implemented. However, some of the monitoring results conducted so far show that Croatia still has a strong pollution problem, pollution from different sources and I mean agriculture and municipal waste sources. And this is, we can go quickly through this data. This is the list of all activities related to use of waters that require concessions. I think we can proceed. You can come back to this and read. This is a similar slide, specific conditions to legal technical conditions for concessionary to fill in order to get the concessions and what are the most important legal or technical conditions. We can continue. So there are two procedures for giving concessions public invitation and on direct application for the public tender. These are more valuable projects of production or generation of electricity exploitation of sand and gravel, and all concessions that use water on a good these direct on require request are usually started by the owner or holder of the right on property for some activity that has something to do with water. We have also concessions. The in order for a concessionary to acquire concession must have the decision and the contract on concession. It's important to say that concession never becomes the owner of this good only acquires the right to use it over a specific period of time. And very often people think that somebody acquired a source of water in as their own property, which can never be allowed. Different types of concessions. Depending on the type of different levels past the decision the creation parliament passes decision on the more powerful hydro power plant the government for somewhat lower power power plants and the mineral geothermal waters for lower properties it was it is the ministry of economy and sustainable development and for some categories of individuals who may not need the concession just the permit to use the water. They are issued such a permit by the Croatian waters Croatian body as an institution this is interesting how active we are with respect to this. More than Bosnia over the past four years we've seen a trend that we show around 500 concessions and the concessions are issued for the period 30 to 60 years. I don't have this information here and now but if you want to know, we can, we can share with you what types of concessions are mostly represented here. This is a very important protection of waters. And this is in line with the presentation by Mr. Peter Rudberg. To what extent this policy takes the economy law will involve the elements of water protection. As we know this is a very lucrative sector but at the same time. This fundamental human rights because we cannot live without water. So whatever it is. It is necessary to always make sure that the. Any deterioration of the water status is prevented and also to prevent when issuing the permits further degradation of waters to follow up on what Professor Lalic has said. He used the one of the reasons for the termination of the concession contract we added the one specific reason and that is the termination by the concessionaire. If some changes to the water regime have been observed significantly deteriorating the water status what will happen is that the concessionaire will be bound. In order to prevent further deterioration to add some new technical and preventative elements. And at some point this may make it economically in effective and they will have the right to to terminate the concession contract in order to prevent further degradation of the water regime. And here. These are some. This is a recommendation regarding the existing permits and alignment with the framework water directive. I will go back to the process of transposition. It's important that not only the framework water directive with Professor Lalic mentioned the directive on awarding concession contracts from 2014. The process is very complex and all these directives must be taken into consideration and my advice, most sincere would be that to start from the definition that really have to be harmonized and literally transposed in your legislation for the first 10 years I worked in Croatian the process of approximation of the law and the past the last 10 years I'll watch from the other side of the fence on behalf of the European Union I follow what others do and they are very strict about the transposition. If your definitions are not right to start with, then other things will not work. Just to repeat. And with this I will finish I have a couple of more technical slides but you can read them yourselves. I think this is about what's the total revenue 70 million kunas and what are the financial liabilities, and I will conclude with the advice with a piece of advice be wise and learn from our mistakes and transposition. A lot of money and time and many failures. And it took us, unfortunately we did not have some good examples some other member countries joined the EU much easier than we did, but I expect you will have the similar process, try to simplify. It's not a problem to adopt the new law I think sometimes it's easier than to try to patch up for the old ones, because every time it will fall apart. And in this context I want to say that we are here for you, you can address us we will always be happy to help you in any way we can. And with this, I will finish my presentation. I hope I stuck with the, the time lot that was given to me. I have to leave you, I will not be able to say for the panel discussions but if you have any specific questions about the waters and creation please send them by email and deal we will make sure to find appropriate persons to give you the answers as well as any other assistance that you may need. Miss, Mrs. Bun, thank you very much for this very useful presentation and what you shared with us. It is very important for us because this is about Croatia our neighboring country. And it is also these these advice that you shared with us are very important. I hope that we will be able to learn from your mistakes and to ask you and other consultants from Croatia. So, goodbye. The questions for your presentations will be passed on. Thank you very much. It was very interesting. According to our agenda, we should have a short break now and let's make it shorter than in this is so let's meet at 1015 some seven eight minutes break so 1015 will start with the next presentation. Thank you. Welcome back to the second part of the webinar. I hope you had time for making sure you're comfortable. Our next presentation and the next panelist will speak about the experience from Spain legal arrangements, legal infrastructure and concessions in Spain. This will be interesting because Spain is a leader in water management in terms of the number of concessions and types of concessions that were granted Professor Pedro Bruffau acts as an advisor on water environmental energy and public relations for both public and private organizations. Mr. Pedro holds a PhD in administrative law from University Carlos III in Madrid and in Spain and he obtained an LLM in energy and environmental law from Tulane University for bread program USA his professor of administrative law at the University of Extremadura in Spain. Mr. Bruffau, back to you. Thank you so much for the invitation to take part in this seminar. Well, I will try to explain Spanish water law which is sometimes very difficult to comprehend all the issues that involve the water permits regime in Spain and the use of water in general. So I will try to translate into normal English or normal language all the clues of our Spanish water law regime. Well, as you can see in the second slide, there are a handful of water regimes in Spain because of the historic point of view of the development of water law in my country. For example, if we could say perhaps 70 or 75% of the Spanish current water law regime comes from normal law, which is very important to take in account because there are private issues that we have to handle every day. For example, now the main law is the 1985 Water Rat, now the 2001 Water Rat that explains the general framework of water law in my country. Besides, we've got also civil rules and historic water rights rules, for example. Now we have to use historic water rights rules dating back to middle-aged to comprehend current relations right in my country. That's a clue that sometimes people forget but it's very, very important to get a clue to the current situations in Spain. Also, we've got a very, very hard influence of the administrative point of view. The main example is the 2001 Hydrological Plan Act, which in a kind of general overview of the use of water in my country, tried to comprehend all the water use and the actual current situation in terms of hydrological issues, environmental issues, consumption, urban development, industrial uses of water, and so on and so forth, which is sometimes a kind of illusions because it's so difficult to comprehend and to to abide by the law, including all the general uses of water in Spain because we've got thousands and thousands of water uses in my country alone, all the bases in Spain, which are sometimes very difficult to include in just one act. And in relation to this plan hydrological plan act of 10 years ago, we've got a bunch of royal decrees which developed all these plans. And now as we can, we have seen already, we've got water for water directive and other directed pollution, flaws, fishing, and so on and so forth. And we've got another restriction of uses because we share almost all the bases with Portugal, and we have assigned a bilateral agreement with Portugal called the Albufeira Convations, which is mainly an international treaty in in relation to hydropower use of the River Tagus, the River Minho, the Wodiana, and the water basins rivers. It's a treaty aiming at dividing the hydropower use at the border of Portugal and Spain. And we also have the habitat directive and sometimes fishing acts, fishing us that have a great influence of water uses, mainly hydropower. In the next slide, the number four slide, I point here that generally freshwater is public. Freshwater is public. This is the main issue of the current water law regime in Spain, but sometimes forgets the order, the historical use, which present water law as a private one. For example, you can see here in the slide number four, this is a sign by the road at the left, which says it's the image of a legal issue held at the Supreme Court 20 years ago that declares all of this land, which was a wetland, a wetland in the Wodiana river basin, which declared this patch of land, this round patch of land, you can see they are irrigated in the summer as a public property. But the owner, the former owner, insists on the private property of this track of land. As you can see, it's quite weird to see by the road a sign like a property. Registered inclusion of some hectares of land, properties 100% private by this called evangelist company, culture company. And sometimes it's quite difficult to know just to have a hint of the legal regime of every track of land of every water use in Spain. In the next slide, number five, we can see also the importance of the use of water law under the water law regime in the country, because 80% of the water is used for agricultural purposes. And sometimes illegal, it's not very rare to have to face illegal water use for agricultural purposes in the country. Then we have the promotion of transitory provisions in water law parents. And now we've got another problem, because all the concessions granted, perhaps 100 years ago, 150 years ago, are now coming to an end. Coming to an end and we will see what is the destiny of these concessions coming to an end. And this problem is not faced by the private water holders of water issues in my country, because when we see that private water is still under the property of irrigation companies or irrigation communities, it can be sold or rented or whatever as a private business issue. Then we can see the problem, the main problem of illegal use in my country. As you can see in the photograph, in the left photograph, there are thousands of thousands of hectares illegally irrigated in my country. And this is the image of under plastic, wooden houses, hectares of berries and so on near the Donyana National Park, perhaps the most protected area in Spain. Also, in the middle, in the very center of my country, the southeast, and of course along the Mediterranean Sea, with thousands and thousands of illegal wells. For example, in the city of Almeria, around the city of Almeria, 30 years ago, the aquifer was declared over exploited when it had a need to support the irrigation as of around 3,500 hectares. Now they are under plastic, perhaps 40,000, with the same over exploited aquifer. In relation to public water use, we've got another separation of regions. All the use under 7,000 cubic meters per year is free and without permission over that amount of water per year, we need a water concession, a water concession that belongs to the holder. And this can be registered in the property registers in my country. I can use a private asset for a mortgage or whatever, to hold a credit from a bank or another private use. But of course, another limit. Water permits holding must be the owners of the land. This is a very important issue that restricts the use of water in the country because there is no more important restriction of the use of water in my country than being the owners of the land, which is a limit to the commercial use of water. Of course, we've got hydropower and other industrial use water permit concession, which is much more restricted, perhaps up to 75 years or can relate 50 years and so on. And now we face the closing downs of nuclear power and coal power plants and paper mills plants and other industrial uses that are coming to an end. And now we've got a problem about the uses of those track of land, of those urban planning around the rivers in Spain. In the eighth slide, we've got a general 75 year period use granted by the water bodies in Spain. But now there are hundreds, perhaps we don't know the exact amount of hydropower permits, they are coming to an end or they have already expired in our days. As you can see in the, in the left photograph, this is near Seville, the city of Seville, the Water Cave River. There is a huge hydropower plant and perhaps this plant will have to be removed after the end of the period granted by the water permit in the 30s of the 20th century. And which is the, the first solution given by the law, demolition, demolition. Turning down what dam is now becoming not very often but not very rare. For example, we can see here that the demolition, the demolition taking perhaps two years ago or three years ago in a dam near the border of Portugal is the first legal options. And we've got another problem with the hydropower dams. Perhaps the state or the regional government can hand it over this exploitation of for hydropower purposes to another company in an auction. And we've got another problem with water bodies and the law because they are very bureaucratic bodies, they lack staff, they lack budget, they lack perhaps an environmental point of view in the day by day work and perhaps within the reform of this water body aiming at the general fulfilment of the water framework directive of all the ecological requirements placed by the habitat directive. They are poorly financed, they have inadequate budgets, lack of staff as said before, and a very low level of water tax section. We can, on the contrary, be understood that the hidden subsidies made it for agricultural and energy uses. And of course they are all also industrial, urban and agricultural policies to foster water abuse that they promote in the areas in the very same buildings of the water bodies and the lobby companies, the lobby of industrial, urban and agricultural companies want to foster in the same water bodies in Spain. That's all. And sorry for my English, we have a pretty big linear of rest. And I will, I will thank all the questions that you can ask me later. Thanks so much. That's all. Thank you very much, Professor Dufal. We listened to your, carefully your presentation and it was interesting to hear that unfortunately you have a very specific problems. You face specific problems while you have been a member state of view for quite a long time. But as Miss Ban said, now we have an opportunity to learn from failures and mistakes of some EU members and I do hope that we will be able to use some of the experience you shared with us in this presentation. On our agenda, we have now some time for discussion until 1120. So we have some 40, 45 minutes for discussion. We have Miss Peter and Miss Dufal available for your questions. But Miss Alida as we already explained will not be able to answer questions now but any questions you may have will be passed to her. Now let's start with the discussion and let's try to answer questions we received. We have 16 questions. I've scrolled the questions and I saw that there are some questions regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina. I would kindly ask the participants for patience and I would prefer if we take questions directed to our panelists first. We should use their presence and then if we have time, we will answer the questions regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina. If you agree, let's start with the first question. The first question was the investor explains their requirements to the level of the government which grants concessions, environmental permits and that would be the ministry depending on which level. This was a commentary related to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then the next question. Now we will not answer this question. This is information which is rather internal. Mr. Victor Bielic is asked the question in English and I will read it. Whether it comes to public legal administrative contracts or private legal obligation. This question relates to the presentation made by Peter so if Peter could say something about this. Selma, could you please repeat and I think it's probably easiest because I have translation on all the time and then if you speak in... I will read it in English. Okay, then please do it again. How is the legal framework for concessions? Whether it comes to public legal administrative contracts or private legal obligation contract? Okay, so in Sweden and it's quite interesting when we hear that in Spain we're somewhere between private and public, water being somewhere between private and public and in Bosnia Herzegovina and also Croatia it's public. In Sweden it's private basically. I think it's a historical tradition also from the fact that we've had a lot of water in Sweden. So it's not been a big issue and it's a private property also related to the land and it's formally a permit. So there's these differences between concessions and permits and so it's a permit that's granted in the court of law. And historically we've had water courts that have granted these concessions. It's almost only been for hydropower production in Sweden so during the last century and historically these permits were granted with no time limit and that's something that the EU with the Water Framework Directive has been pushing Sweden to change and that's part of the reason why we have the one I presented with this strategy to review all the permits. But basically the water is private connected to the land and you get a permit to use it where during that permit you look at different, well now before you didn't look too much at environment but you looked at different third person effects if someone were affected downstream or upstream or if you're damning and so on. So it's been gone through that and it's public. I mean you can, in Sweden, transparency is very good so you can get access to that information. So I hope that's an answer. Thank you Peter. We have several more questions for Sweden, for Peter. In the presentation that you gave, the question is, in the part where you talk about the Swedish national plan, what do you mean by reviewing the permits? So I think you touched upon this in your earlier answer but please could you elaborate on it a little bit, what do you include under this review or revision of permits? Yeah, great. Thanks. So basically in Sweden the permits that were given for hydropower were given between in the 50s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and they were all granted according to a law, water law from 1918. So they were, you know, more than a hundred year old law and the permits that were granted during the 50s and 60s and 70s and 40s. What you basically looked at was third party effects so if someone downstream was affected economically they would get some compensation. So that was what the court really looked at, you know, who was directly affected. And of course in the 50s and 60s there were no like environment as a concept didn't exist really. So the environmental provisions are lacking in most cases and we have from that period of time a very aggressive exploitation of rivers where you could, you know, you have dams and you can have zero flows. And basically as I commented, you know, river and ecosystems were converted into electric systems really. All the flows and everything is related to the electric system requirements. So with the water final directive and with these processes and also the Commission, the EU Commission has been pushing Sweden to say that, you know, you can't have permits that are forever and really hard to change which was the case in Sweden and the permits from the 50s and 60s, the conditions in those permits are still valid today right now as we speak hydropower is being produced in Sweden, according to the permits that were granted in the 50s, according to law from 1918. So so so that's not great, I think and the Commission didn't think that was great either. So what's happening now is they're saying you should have modern environmental conditions or provisions sorry modern environmental provisions in all permits. So that is kind of the basis and to be modern environmental provisions it has to be maximum 40 years old so after this first 20 year period. So the idea is that every 40 years, we're going to review those, those, those conditions for the environment that are in there. So basically, it's a whole, it's a, it's a very, very complex, but I think it's quite a good way of doing it again you can discuss it, if the limits and what those restrictions are if that's the right ones but I think the process is relevant and good they're saying, you know, the big stations should be granted exemptions according to the you water framework directed. So there is this possibility of saying that the big stations the ones with dance that can regulate, which are much more valuable to the electric system and the small ones that can't regulate. Minimum flows should not have big environmental, you know, you shouldn't have fish passages there or minimum flows, because you're going to lose so much hydro power production in the small ones. So they're saying that, you know, okay, all the small ones have to reach good ecological status. And that's, you know, we'll see when we come to court but basically that means having fish passages and minimum flows on all stations. And in Sweden they've done this financial agreement of lowering the tax of of hydropower production units. And then the eight biggest hydropower producers have created a fund, which has actually quite a lot of money but I mean the tax, the tax cuts were bigger than the money in the fund, the tax cuts were about 190 million euros a year, and the fund is about 50 million euros a year for improvements. And when a small part of hydro power producer goes to court and they say you have to have a fish passage you have to do all these investigations have to do all that. And then hydro power producers can apply to this fund and get 90% coverage of all the costs, and that includes removing the dam because it could be that you say it's it's not worth, you know, maybe it's it's a very, you know, high value environmental value, and maybe it's not worth any more than the hydro power producer can say okay, let's just tear it out. We agree I agree to removing the dam and they get 90% coverage of all foregone production in. So they say okay so we calculate how much you would produce in the next 20 years and we do you know a percentage or whatever and they say okay so it's valued as this much all the production that you're going to lose is you know 100,000 euros. And they say okay we're going to pay you 90,000 euros from this fund. So it's, it's, it is, I mean it's still not simple but they have dealt with many of the issues that can mean that when you go to court of law, it just get gridlocked like you want to remove gridlock and one of the ways to do that is through economic needs. So, yeah, I think that's, that's an explanation I hope. I think it's a microphone is off. I can see her speaking but we can hear nothing. I apologize you couldn't hear me. Peter, I think we have another question for you. Well, in Sweden, are the water concessions given a water concessions given in accordance with the general law on concessions or in accordance with the law on water, which law applies to concessions on water. So, I think. So here you have to differentiate between what is going on right now and what happened 80 years ago, when most of the hydropower was the most of the concessions for hydropower granted in Sweden. So now in Sweden we have an environmental code, which, you know, has lots of so it's a special code for the environment that that kind of has thrown in all these different sub areas of environmental legislation in Sweden and some new concessions, or permits in the Swedish are granted according to that and those and in that environmental code we have very high standards and it's you know it's it's it's strict requirements. But the thing in Sweden is there's not many new hydropower stations being built. What we have is we have a huge stock of hydropower stations that were built built in the 50s and 60s and 70s. And those hydropower concessions or permits were granted according to the water law of 1918. And so it's very, very old law and I think again, reflecting on what federal file, Professor Brefa was saying that law was meant to allow for exploitation of water resources. It was really. It was really the main objective was to allow for a rapid and big construction of hydropower in Sweden and, you know, it's been very valuable Sweden, Sweden is, you know, the top hydropower producer in the EU. But it's come to with a very, very high costs. And that's the issue now that those permits from the 50s and 60s were granted with no time limits. And the issue then if you wanted to change to change an old permit, you could have a public agency going in and asking for a fish passage, but the burden of proof in the court of law was on that public agency. So it's very, very, very, very difficult to change any of these old concessions. And that's what's changing now when you have a requirement and that's also to place the burden of proof on the actor that wants to use the water resources is happening now in Sweden as well with this new plan because it's saying every 40 years. The hydropower producer has to show that, you know, they're they're aligning to environmental legislation, be it the water framework directive or be Swedish environmental legislation. And this this special legislation before the water law, which was very much aimed at allowing for hydropower construction. And right now we have the environmental code. But again, almost everything was constructed during the last century. So, so the influence of this water law from 1918 was almost complete. And it's just minor, you know, some stations that had this new, according to the environmental code. And that is changing now with this process that's going to happen during the next 20 years. Thank you, Peter. I will use my privilege to ask a sub question related to this. It is clear. You explained it very clearly how the permits are issued. But it's interesting. How do you go about concessions? Do you have the law on concessions? Do you have the institutions commissions? Do you have them at all? And one thing is the permit concession is a completely different matter. So do you integrate the permits and do you take them into account in some regulations on concessions and what are the bodies that grant the concession based on these permits, I assume. Thank you. So I think we go into this issue of water being a public resource or a private resource. And I think in Sweden, it tends towards a private resource. So, which is connected to the land, which means that what you need is a permit, which is slightly different from the concession because as the presenter said, a concession is the right to use a resource. In this case, if you own the land, you own the water. And then you get a permit, which is also a legal right to do something, but you get the right to modify that water, which has effects on other people. So what you do is you go to a court of law, which is in Sweden right now, it's the land and environmental law, which is part of the regular court system. So when you have a ruling and you question that ruling, it moves up to the second level, which is the environmental superior court. If you continue subpoenaing and going up, you go to the superior court, the general superior court in Sweden, if it tries it. So it's part of the general court system in Sweden. It's one branch of it. And so it's in the end, it's the court of law that decides what is allowed to do with that and it grants a permit. And priorly, you know, 50 years ago, it was these water courts. And the key there again is that those permits were eternal. There was no time limit. You could change them, but then you would have to have an active intervention by someone else who then got all the burden of proof and evidence to change it. So it's very hard to change, but that has changed now, starting 2019 with this new process and putting the burden off. So, so all these permits now in the next 20 years are going to the land and environmental court of Sweden, and they're going to give a new the court court permit for that. Thank you for this additional explanation. Next questions, but saying to the situation in Croatia, so we will not read them out, they will be passed on to the creation authorities. Next, we have a question for Peter, if you could say, if you know what is the average concession, the produce megawatt of electricity. The same question applies to Croatia, but Peter, if you have information, please share it with us. So in Sweden, there's no concession piece as in there's, there's, there's a tax on the property. So if you have a hydropower station, there's a tax of that facility that's in there working. And that was part of this agreement where actually traditionally hydropower stations have been taxed quite high because they're so profitable, particularly the big one so so they had around 1.8% I think tax. And, and, and in this agreement that were a couple of years ago, there was a political agreement and they also wanted to incentivize the big hydropower producers not to kind of block progress. And they said, okay, we're going to, we're going to reduce your tax. And then, you know, if we reduce your tax was reduced from serve 1.8% to 0.5% of the production value. Then, you know, let's, you should create this fund that will pay for for for measures in the smaller stations. So there's no fee. As far as I know, there's a tax on the property that's there. Thank you, Peter. The next questions, several questions pertaining to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will skip them now and we will continue with the questions that are for Peter and Mr. For Mr. Bufal, question regarding the presentation by Professor Bufal in the part of the public consumption of water, water permit equals with concession. Is this the regulation or was it a translation error? Yes, I thought that was the question was for me because I haven't gotten the translation into English, sorry. I will repeat a question. In the part which of your presentation, which discusses the public water consumption, the water permit is equalized with concession. Is it the problem of translation on the slide or is it the regulation in the law in Spain? Because I don't have the translation into English of those questions. If you press on the bottom, you have the next to gravar. Here. English? Ah, okay. They asked me for permission to the host of this meeting. I cannot see it. Sorry. I'm very sorry. Of course, can we ask our support team to allow Professor Bufal to hear translation into English? I forgot all the list of questions and answers. Sorry, but I cannot hear. Call using internet audio. I'm sorry about that. I'm not able to solve this. Selma, maybe you could read in English if he hears, if you just say the question in English. Selma, maybe. I read it in English. I will try to read this comment in English. So within your presentation, one slide which it was written public water consumption. In one slide it is the water permits was in fact equal to water concession. So is it problem with the translation or that is really according to the law that water permit as concession. In general, water permit or water concession is the same in Spain. It depends on the use for agricultural purposes for industrial or urban uses. So we need to have water concession for the conception itself, the concession of cell of water, which means it's transformation into energy into agricultural products or into urban use concession. We need another thing called authorization just for lower level of use, which is much easier to give to private companies or to private uses. But in general, water concession and water permit is the same in general. Thank you very much. I would, I would, if we still have problem, I would continue the next question because it's also a question for you. Okay. I have, sorry, I have pressed a button here called interpretation in English. So, in your grade. Great. Then I will read the question in English. How do you currently control the illegal use of water and this in this area of regulated in Spain? Well, this is a very good question. To control the water uses. In Spain, we have the world record in dams, more than 200, sorry, 1200 dams in the country. In large dams, we've got perhaps 3 million tests on their irrigation and 1000 1000 because they are on the behind the law underneath the law of hidden are illegally uses, but we've got a some types of control made bureaucratic ones, the register and the public register inscription of what the rights and so on. Other technical with good. I don't know the word in English called the limiters something what emitters and instruments plates in the canals in the dams in the pipes and so on. And we've got also satellite images to control what it uses, but the program in Spanish water law enforcement. In the south feeds. I can remember well that there is a house is estimated that around 100 more than 100,000 stars are illegal in the southeast in the province of Murphia, which is available. And there is a water market of illegal uses of water. And it's a very market with 1000 of kilometers of five tiny pipes around all the valleys and mountains and around all the region in Murphia near the city of Valentina in the southeast of Spain, which is very difficult to control. And the problem is that the other main policy perhaps the main policy under the legal system is the common agricultural policy foster all these illegal uses because they give money. And besides local authorities do not want to control what to use. And personally, opposing to the closure of again shutting down of words for example in the national park nowadays, and before the civil guard the police, even before the public force in that system of control were oblige under the fishing boats, they did back to the beginning of the 20th century, but they are scarcely enforced today, even today. They were given a 10 year period, time to abide by the law but it's quite difficult to find general requirements fulfilled by what's the uses with what's in direct means to control what for example in hydropower, we sometimes go to the call it's called the the national energy commissions just to control which hydropower plants are using water and work with mathematical mathematical problems and clues just to get all the consumption of water and have a power plant because we can translate the energy production into what to use. Thank you. Thank you. If I may ask another question in relation to this this is a very interesting point for us and the professor if you can say you also discuss the problem with the agriculture and the farmers. Is it fair to say that the problems that you have rise from the fact that there is no strong cooperation between the water sector and agricultural sector and that the inspection is not efficient, and that the penalty or sanctions have not been applied consistently in Spain in such cases. Thank you. Well, it's sometimes very difficult, it's almost impossible to enforce the law in relation to agricultural uses in my country. As you could see in one of the slides that I have shown before. The Donyana National Park perhaps the the most protected area in my country, in the south, which is a huge wetland, perhaps there are within the park a thousand illegal wells within the park and another 1000 wells around the park. Just to grow berries and other agricultural products, greenhouse products. And we have after a 10 year campaign, including the National Prosecutor, just close 77 of those 1000 wells. 77 out of 1000 is a very small exit. Sometimes quite difficult. Yes. Thank you very much for your explanation. Any questions are related to Croatia we will skip them now, as I have explained, we will have answers in the forthcoming period we have one, several questions from both Spain and Sweden. They're written in England, Spain, Sweden before a water permit is issued. And how long the public really lasts. So Robert, can you first if you want. Sure. So, so again, we're talking if we're talking about new permits that there are quite clear rules about contacting possibly affected people. And there's a process legislature that has, you know, that the permit seeker has to has to go through. I don't know exactly the time, but it's, you know, it's, there's different steps you have to publish, you have to make it public, and, you know, invite different actors and then you have on the regional level. You have to, you know, inform the state representatives and they also have a responsibility so so again I think in when we're talking about new permits. The process is pretty good and there's not many new permits granted in Sweden. So again, for Sweden, what we'll see in the future with climate change if we're going to start thinking about irrigation. But for now, the big issue is, it's not really new permits it's the ones we already have, which is the biggest ones because for new permits. You know, the process is good and, and for many of these, these issues, when it comes to, I saw for example this one from Ombudsman presence so Sweden is actually one of the countries pushing the EU for for transparency and good processes and you know, for different stakeholders to be able to intervene in these public decisions and so on. And Ombudsman is actually a Swedish word, which is this kind of independent overseer that you can complain to if things are not being done the way they should be by by by government. So Pedro, hand it to you. Yes. Well, this is the main problem. What's a lot today in Spain. How long a permit it could be for how long. Well, we've got because it is a transitory regime with we've got both regimes, the old one and the new one, the old ones, they back to the Roman law to Canonical law, the charge law for permanent for good permits. They are, they were permits given by the monarchy to water holders to owners of land. Then that for good permit eternal permit was to radio to a 1909 year period of time under the 19th century or water act. Under this, it was issued with a publishing 1879 water act of Spain. They were issued were published perhaps now 80% of the current water permits. With allow water holders to use the water up to 99 for a period of 19 years that were reduced up to 75 in 1985. The problem is when, since when, since 1985 of since the water you was already taking, perhaps 100 years ago, the Supreme Court, a couple of years ago declared that we have to come down all these years that remain in the hands of the water permit holders from the first day the water would call entering to exploitation. So the result is that perhaps 99% of current hydropower uses, which date back to the beginning of the 20th century. Now, they are, they have inspired the promising that water bodies have to declare all those water rights experience. And in relation to that, we've got another result. The first solution even by the water that is demolition. We've got now this problem. We've got another problem. And the central part of Spain is more empty of people. We've got 1000 of 1000 of water mills of paper mills of little irrigated land of orchards or with abandoned because there is nobody to take after those places. So we've got another problem. Water uses that in the register are enforced, but they are already abandoned because the main concentration of population in Spain is around Madrid, the capital and along the seashore. And the red is almost empty. So we've got now a maximum of 75 year period of water use. In general. And now the practice, the practice in water bodies is not to give more than 40 years, 50 years to hydropower or to irrigation. We use a limit up to 75 years. And the fact it is now we've got hundreds of little small dance hydropower dance abandoned in Spain. And also because of the and not so profitable than before. Reginal of tax and subsidies incentive to produce hydropower. They are abandoned. So we have around, I've got the data here, we have demolished, we have got demolished around 300 small dance and three large dance in Spain, all of them hydropower. Answer your questions properly. So we have another question for Sweden and Spain, I will again read it in English. We have an initiative offer in the procedure of issuing concessions in Spain and Sweden. And is there a legal mechanisms to regulate the number of self initiated offers, we plead a certain natural resource such a river, for example, I haven't understood to the question for the world. What self initiated offer means. I will ask the authors of this question to explain it. This is when some party wants to exploit some public good without a public call for giving concession, they can initiate the process on their own. I believe that was the, the meaning of the question that's what we call here self initiated offer. You first. Okay. So I think in Sweden, since it's, I mean, I think this is that we go back to the difference of Walker being a public good for a private good. In Sweden is that it's tense mortar it's being a private good. So, I mean, if, if we're, if we're seeing them, you know, if you would want to self initiated, you know, do something with the water. You would start the process of contacting that the, the, the, the, this is what, what's regulated in the environmental code, and you would say well okay, if we're talking about hydropower station saying I have this river in my land and I think it would be great to build a hydropower and then, you know, they would contact the local authority, the regional authority which have the responsibility for that and you would start the process of informing all the people that would be affected by it. And they would have the chance to meet and you would have to have, you know, this this collaboration formally you would have to send out invitations you would have to show that you have informed and and allowed these other stakeholders to have, you know, to voice their view. And then that that person that would want to have the permit would then go to the court of law to this environment, land and environmental court of law and they would, you know, present to the court and say this is such a great idea. And then you would have both public actors, you have public actors that have the role of defending that the common, like the public interest, including environmental interest, as well as these regional bodies that could, you know, act and be presented in this court of law and that decision if they think it's not a good choice. And you would also I mean this is in line with the orders convention, you would also have, for example NGOs to have the possibility to to to raise their voice and they have standing in the court of law as well and then in the you would have decision from the court and that decision could be peanut or you know when you take it one higher up to the Superior Court of Law of Environment and then you could possibly if there's principle important issues, you could take it up to the Supreme Court of Sweden. But that would take a long while. So that's how it would go in Sweden. Well, in Spain, to begin with what's a permit is up to the one who is asking for it. So, and they forgot also to present the environmental impact assessment and an order planning permit. We call industrial activity use of that permits or agricultural permit. And then ask for it at the water body. And sometimes, especially since they entered into force of the habitat directive some of these water permit have been rejected, and they have also gone to up to even up to the Supreme Court just to appeal that administrative and rejecting the, the water permit, especially because of environmental law problems. And perhaps I recall now one of those cases near the Pyrenees near the French border that are very huge large dam for including being subsidized our cultural products by common agricultural policy, and was rejected by the Supreme Court because of the damages, probably a cost to the to the river to assume some species, especially protected by the habitat directive, but it's quite problematic and the environmental impacts the positive environmental impact assessment was issued in 1999. We've got a 22 year fight before the course just before getting the large dam project rejected. The problem is, is about all those dams already constructed or built or under construction, construction, sorry. Now, the Spanish courts are very reluctant to say not so friendly to stop a work, a public finance, a publicly financed work to stop it at the beginning. And the problem is what we do with them when they perhaps the project is being declared illegal, but the dam has been already built. Are we going to get it demolished? Not yet. Yes. Yes. Sorry, also Pedro, you reminded me the environmental impact assessment is in Sweden also of course part of the required fulfillment and also presented to the court in the decision. Thank you very much for your responses. The next question is related to the public interest in water abstraction. What is the bottom limit when the public interest comes into play. In other words, based on what indicators a decision is made that the water is, the use of water is in public interest if the concessionaire is not a public body. And that's that question goes to whoever might be Peter. Well, if you allow me to answer now. Yes, of course. The issue of public interest. For example, the public interest of getting a golf course built in an urban resort along the sea shore or to give those water rise for cultural purposes. The economic result, the economic asset of a result of the investment in heuristic uses or to agricultural uses, perhaps those are right, but because we've got under the water as a scale of water uses. The first is urban uses to drink and for sanitation uses, urban uses in general, and then our cultural, industrial, touristic energy or whatever. So perhaps it's much more profitable to have a very green, under the sun green golf course in Spain, which is much more profitable in economic terms than to have it for the node to, to water sugar beat. Which is a highly subsidized agricultural product in my country. And besides some of the sewer factories have closed down in recent years. That is the main user which is the best public interest use facing some alternatives. And we've got another view of public interest, for example, the environmental public interest to oppose a large dam project be constructing in my country. And that is now a problem resolved under the general administrative law in Spain, because environmental citizens, citizens association have the right to appeal those projects for all the, all the leads of uses in my country. To have any agricultural property or industrial right or interest to, to appeal those decisions. There is a general common access to justice because of the arhos salvation, which is the human, which the, both the European Union in Spain are part of this international and we've got another clue, perhaps, because they are not so profitable or ruin complete ruin. In economic terms, perhaps if we just reduce the what the subsidies in a culture policy, perhaps at 25%. I can recall now I can make a study of the Bank of Spain. Perhaps we have, we could have and not abandon, perhaps 2,000 200,000 hectares in Spain, because they are not profitable, unless you pay for it. For example, tobacco, sugar beet, corn, wheat in my country. That's the problem, which is more publicly interested in these issues. Yeah, the main problems for our culture, for what are using Spain of what a habit that's protected in Spain is the common agricultural policy. I can quickly, quickly jump in also. And I think this is the, you know, the million dollar question. What's the public interest and how do we decide and I think that comes back to this to my presentation that you know when we speak about what indicators we're trying to make it specific. And we're trying to say, you know, we're going to find this optimal solution and we're going to find this best solution where we've, you know, we've waited all these things and we have a rational and objective decision. And I think we have to kind of accept that we're not going to find that rational, perfect decision, what we're going to have is we're going to have lots of different interests. And of course, we're going to have conflict, and we're going to have, you know, in the background as, as a professor for spouses I mean the EU has not figured this out. We have contradictory subsidizes going in from the cap, which are not in line with the waterfront directed objectives and we have to renewable electricity directed that gives subsidies and say you know, and it's really complicated. We're not going to find this perfect solution saying this is the way to do it. These are the indicators. It's rather, you know, it's, it's quite of a, it's a messy process, and you know we're in it, and we're doing it right now I think. Can you say something? Can you say something? Yeah. Yes, yes. We've got another motto now because in industrial terms or economic terms, because we have before a river and to make a industrial production or a cultural production and now with the river we produce biodiversity. And this is the new sentence that is, that has great success nowadays in the space. We've got rivers and aquifers to not to gain money, but to earn money, but to gain biodiversity. And now, for example, no company, no one has entered into the general action given by the national government for new hydropower permits in Spain, not even a euro has been presented in that action held in December for new hydropower plants in my country, because they are not profitable anymore. Thank you. There are two more questions I will read both of them they are in English, although the second one has already been discussed. And are there any long term plans in this context in Sweden or Spain and environmental permits? Okay, so the inspectors effective in Spain and Sweden compliance is permits. In this context, are there complaints from public that inspectors are ineffective. Okay, so I think this question goes back to what what we've heard from, you know, a lead out so in integration I think it's something for new EU countries and for all the EU countries to say, and it's this issue, you know, transposing, implementing and enforcing. And it's, you know, it's relatively easy to transpose, then it gets harder to implement, and then it gets even harder to enforce what you're supposed to enforce. And I think in Sweden, it's relatively speaking, you know, good rule of law and, you know, people, people, people abide by the rulings and what's what's, you know, what's formally being decided. And if we're talking about how successful the restoration efforts are when you've had when you have a removal of a hydropower down for example. I mean, you have to have in mind that until now there hasn't been many removals because these permits were granted forever. So there was very, very little done what was done was done, but it was very, very little because it was almost impossible to restore a river unless the hydropower producer agreed to it. And, you know, that that that is a hard, hard thing to do many times. Sometimes it could happen. We had some areas with really high environmental values and endemic species and you know, they did some and they got lots of lots of public funding to do it as well. But it was very, very small. And what we're seeing now, which I think is, is, is a realistic plan in Sweden, when they're saying, okay, we need to get, you know, we need to take out the economic bits from the equation. You still have lots of emotional value and you have lots of people in Sweden that have had a hydropower dam and before that, their parents had a meal where they were they were doing. There's been this use of water for generations. And of course, the people that have done that have an emotional attachment to continued using or doing hydropower production. But what you can remove is this economic incentives and that is one of the good things I think is Sweden where they actually said, okay, you can get 90% of your losses will be covered by this fund. So when you go to an individual and say you have to have modern environmental provisions, so you have to have a fish passage you have to visit and it's going to cost you 100,000 euros. Well, they get 90,000 back from, from, you know, or if it's 10,000 euros to get 9,000 back, more or less, from this fund. Once the decision is taken, it will be implemented. And, and the question is getting there and I think also this just kind of relates a bit to what we see again and I saw it in Croatia and also Spain it's this old and new laws that are conflicting and that are not, you know, working very good. This is what this plan in Sweden is doing. It's taking, we've had all these old laws from 1918. And now they're saying, okay, well, we have to in a sense start new and we have to review all the ones we have. And we have to apply, you know, the EU legislation and new environmental legislation to all of them. So they go through every permit for hydropower production in Sweden during the next 20 years. And, you know, starting from not a blank page, but saying, okay, everything we had before, but we even, we have to do this revision. I think that scientists say that regular installation is sometimes quite easy to get because rivers and wetlands are very dynamic. So, getting rid of the problem, dam, the version of water or whatever, the river, where the light can recover very quickly. And said that with, we don't have a long term plan for real restoration in Spain, we've got in the specific basic hydrological plans. Some clues, some projects, some even aspirations to get dam in relation to river restoration. For example, this national but very poorly funded national restoration of rivers in Spain that sometimes have a great success. For example, in other rivers, in the cold river in Spain, from the French border to Portugal, we have got demolished around 200 dams of those 300 dams demolished in Spain nowadays. And the river, they recover very quickly and very easily. Not only for environmental purposes, for also for a security purposes, to avoid flood damages. For example, because the small dams put out the level of the rivers and they can put in rips, towns and villages, cities, coastal areas and so on. About the second part of the question, what are the penalties for investors who do not respect the water environmental permit? 90% of the cases, they have no result. If you can calculate, to make a calculation of the risk of being punished by the law, perhaps you keep on unfulfilling the law because it's much more profitable to unfulfill the law than to buy it. So sometimes there is no effective penalty for investors because it's quite difficult, the first of all, it's quite difficult to control water use. And then perhaps you check both in the justice balance and you balance the risk of keeping being illegal and the risk of with economic result of being legal and perhaps you can have a negative result for the general society and to keep on unfulfilling the law. Our inspectors affecting in Spain is quite difficult. We've got a lot of problems just to get, especially with hydropower dams, to get with traumatic with internet issues, instruments and so on, to get all the water releases under control. But sometimes we lack staff, we lack, for example, in some premises that are only a couple, three or four water ribbon inspector or water rivers, we call policemen, police people, just to monitor or to control the water, to comply with this permit. It's quite difficult. It's quite difficult to first to control, then to file a fine against someone, then to get it appealed before the administrative body and then to the court and it's quite difficult. I wouldn't say ineffective, but it's very problematic to get them effective. So Pedro, there is a publication where they look at specifically Doniana in Spain and Australia and another and look at this kind of, you know, what's the risk, the penalties and what's and it's, it's, there are many steps that have to be going I could share that with Salma, and it can be available in general also. Yes, we've got plenty of reports claiming that the water law regime is not respecting in Spain, but it occurs at the end of the day. Thank you very much gentlemen. We have already exceeded our time a lot to this web webinar. I would honestly thank our panelists because they opened our eyes they gave us a full insight in the situation in their country we've heard some negative examples and we can come back to what we presented at the beginning when it comes to concession and the use of water it is a rather complex and hot issue everywhere and it is not simple and there is no optimum solution for this. What we can say is that the is that we should be guided by principles and hope to achieve an optimum solution we need to take into account the rule of law, EU regulations and the applicable legislation at the national level as we could see in many countries in Sweden, Croatia and Spain, there are multiple problems related to concessions and it was very useful to hear these very specific examples. I thank you once again to the panelists and I hope the participants also obtain interesting information. I would close with the comments which I like and with which I agree that it was very interesting that Professor Pedro said that after the concession expires, it is possible to demolish the dam and restore the river. We can hardly imagine this and we discussed this and Professor Pedro reiterated this possibility on several occasions. Every question that was asked in relation to our country or Croatia will be answered and I believe my colleagues have already answered some questions in writing this will be the end of our webinar and I hope this was very useful for us for all of you and I thank once again to our panelists for the effort. They have made to explain the situation in their respective countries. Thank you very much and goodbye. Thank you, it's been a pleasure. You're welcome.