 I suggest that we make four themes this afternoon. Question one is one, and question two is one. And then question three and four deal with reuse. But I think we combine that together. And the last one, probably also that we can look at pharmaceuticals and pesticide in the water at the same way. Probably first discussion together and then in detail. First, I would like to start with the first question. And I think that's clear. I would like to give the floor now to Chioge Konstantin, the water director of Romania, to give a few on the first question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, because it's my first word here. I want, first of all, to thank the European Commission for the blueprint and to say something that we are with the implementation of the water framework directive much far than without this directive concerning the water protection. The image you presented, in my opinion, it was a gray image. For Romania, it's a light gray than dark gray, in a way that the EU directive helped us to advance with the water protection. Secondly, related to this question, I think that it's a fundamental issue which we have discussed in the morning, a relation between water quality protection and money, which is an important issue. You know, if you look now on the television, you will see only news about the money. You cannot see news about the water. But I think that the water, it's so important that we have to give the proper attention. Without money, you are poor. Without water, you are dead. But in order to protect the water, you need the money. I was wondering why you choose me, reaching our target. Only 45%, we are not reaching. Yes, it's true probably. But in 2000, when the directive has been enacted, if you put in the question where will be the European Union in 2012, I don't know how many would give the answer. However, despite this difficult financial situation, we are committed to go forward with the protection of the water resources because it will be essential for our country and for us as a living being. We also need money, I consider, for promoting innovation. You know, when you have to promote this infrastructure, it will be very expensive to build, but also expensive to maintain and operate. And if you give me a Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce, I will say thank you, I cannot pay the fuel for this. Therefore, probably I will need another car which will allow me. I enjoy to have a Mercedes, but it's too expensive for me. This is what I think that the innovation should provide us with the solutions which will be possible to be supported in a way of operation and maintenance. Also I think that, as I said, not all the funds should come from the EU even if we are respecting also an important part from the EU, but this, a lot of funds should come from the private sectors which will have to work for the improvement of the sale infrastructure or of their practices and referring here to agriculture and to industry. In order to do this, it was highlighted already that we need to strengthen the economic mechanism. And I can tell you that this is a key issue, a key issue, and we had the experience in Romania with this economic mechanism. In 2000, we increased the price of the drinking water three times. The result was that the consumption per capita decreased from 540 liters per inhabitants a day to 120 in 10 years. Also, it was an increase. This is a happy example. It was an increase in the fertilizer price. The use of the fertilizer in agriculture decreased tremendous. I said that this economic mechanism, the water field, will be very important because it's very efficient. And I want to tell you that we consider very important to have a European approach. In Romania, all the users are paying for water with one exception, navigation on the river, which is only the Danube, the most used. The idea is that if we will not have a common approach in the European level, we will fail with this initiative. Right now, we have increased, for example, for hydropower, the price of water used for hydropower three times. Now the government of Romania is in court with the hydropower industry because they are complaining about this increase. But I think they are using, they are the most important user of water. The last issue, which I said also it's important for the, to be provided with financial resources, is related to integration in the other policies. This is a very, very important issue. And here it's an issue related, as it was highlighted in the morning, is the issue of the subsidies, which will create a lot of problems. And if this will not be taken at the EU level, it will be very difficult to do it at the national level. And just want to remind you that I have read that the European Parliament said no to a moratorium on the shell gaze. And this issue will be left, or has been left, at the national level. It will be a very, very big problem to take at the national level, at least in some countries. And then I will not say that we need more EU enforcement, but I think that we need more EU support, particularly from the European Commission. And this support is necessary for steering the process of the implementation of these directives to continue the implementation of these directives at the European level. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jorgen, for this overall view. May I ask Ann to add with Ann Niels? OK, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. So indeed, I'm representing CIFIC and a large number of companies. I do have to say that, of course, I'm not representing the pharmaceuticals here. So there might be some of you disappointed, but I can only deal with what I know and that is running chemical plants. On the first question, so do we need more enforcement? I think the view of the chemical industry would be that we agree more or less with the outcome of the fitness check, that the legislative toolbox as such is already quite comprehensive. And we feel that although there are some requirements that might perhaps be desirable, but that the focus indeed should be on implementation. And the role we see here for the Commission and the Common Implementation Strategy in particular is really to serve as a platform where people can share experiences and best practices to move forward. Now as we all saw in the various reports being presented here, the water quality is influenced by many pressures. We have different types, point sources, diffuse sources. I would believe that most of the policy instruments are available to deal with them. And what is key here and will be the key challenge, I think, for the next program of work for that Common Implementation Strategy is really to think on consistency, how to keep the consistency and how to coordinate between those legislations. I think that's an important message, of course, from industry that there needs to be a coordination and consistency need to be kept. There was also some mentioning of monitoring made here. And for us indeed this is key. Good quality monitoring is really the first step. It should not be an endpoint, it's say, but it really should be the starting point because once you have such a high quality data set, then the work starts in our opinion. I mean, you have to look at the data set and you have to see for those cases where you have a significant risk being demonstrated. Why is this risk there? Where is it coming from? What are the sources that contribute? And then I think what is needed is really and I would say a kind of deliberation room where you start to think what would be the most appropriate measures to take, at what scale. And of course the element of the cost-effective way of doing it would be very high on that agenda. So it needs to consider all possible sources, all possible inputs that makes that you don't meet quality objectives as you would like to. And on taking the measures, of course, for the chemical industry, for industry, the ones we're mainly involved in is a good implementation of the industrial emission directive and on the other hand, of course, for the chemical industry, the implementation of REACH, which is the framework for the substances, for the chemical substance is already today, largely contributing and achieving a good water quality and as you know, a substance is only allowed for use if there is a demonstration of risk, of a control risk, sorry. Coming back to the question asked here, so in recent years, indeed, the water quality has been improved and we can testify that as well, we see the fish back in rivers where we are discharging and we also, I think, did our chair, we had our first of the kinds chemical sustainability report where you can see that indeed, for instance, take nitrogen, take phosphor, you can see that between 2001 and now we have the APRTAR data from 2010, we have heavily reduced our load, so the nitrogen and phosphor we've been down with, let's say about 50, I think the numbers are 50, 40% for nitrogen and even 80 for phosphorous. And we also asked ourselves the question, how does that come now? Is it legislation? Is this enforcement or what is it? And I think at least what we think as chemical industry, it's a combination of many things. It is indeed a combination of legislation and it is also a combination of industry taking on board initiatives, voluntary initiatives as well to have their operations running in a way respectful for the environment. So from these numbers, so we're talking between 2001 and 2010, if you know that the IED, so the documents, which are called PREF documents, so the best available technique reference documents, the first one for the chemical industry were there 2001 and the latest one was finalized 2009. So you see, it's rather recent as the documents are there and yet we can already see some results in the field. So we believe that when it came, the proposal from the blueprint, so to have ELVs strengthening, I think what we would like to say there is to do a little bit of expectation management here. I think the PREF are focusing on the most significant environmental aspects and it is indeed intended to control the emissions at the point where they enter the environment. It's not about regulating the operations. The PREFs are in that case not a place where you would find a level, a range of emissions for each and every one priority substance. You would find it, of course, for the most relevant ones that that goes without saying. But to have it for each and every, so to have a kind of range that is, how shall I say, the range that you need to attain really to, when you're running your operations on the BAT to have it for each priority substance is not feasible and perhaps also not desirable and needed. You have to know that we are in the chemical industry, have eight of these documents, all covering different products, all products have different processes beneath. So there's a huge variability beneath. So if you want to capture that all into one single BAT conclusions, you probably are a bit disproportionate and asking a bit too much of the experts participating to those events. What can we say then that is the solution? So the fact of not having these range is by no way an escape route for the chemical industry because there are parameters being defined at this moment. We are in the second revision of that particular graph that allow to judge competent authorities whether or not these wastewater treatments are operated under BAT. So that is an ongoing process. So if you have that, and if then your environmental monitoring of the member states show that there is an issue for a substance, what we then say is then go back to what I said at the start, try to find out what is making that there is apparently a significant problem. What are the sources? And yes, indeed operation, industrial operation can be one of them. And then of course it is a matter of experts of the industry sitting together with experts of the competent authorities and try to come up with the best way forward. And this is already ongoing, sometimes processes are changed, et cetera. So I think the skills and expertise of all local stakeholders here, including the competent authorities are key. And that is again coming back to my first statement where we say that the commission has this role to play of exchanging platform and sharing those experience. We are certainly willing to do our share, I would say. And today I'm also a civicist, not me, but civicist very proud to announce that we did launch the project. It's called Water Management, which is really exactly there to promote continuous improvement of water management at our member's side with a focus on water stressed areas. And it's there to also spread good practice and report. And we will identify some indicators to show how we're doing. And I hope to come back to you with a few years from here to show the results. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. Niels, please. Thank you very much. Just a short overall remark on enforcement. Do we need more EU enforcement or more EU funds? I would say it's not a question which one we need more of. We need both enforcement and more funds to ensure the goals in, for example, the water framework directive. This morning, we had a discussion on ensuring full compliance with the water framework directive in the area over abstraction of water. In this area, we need enforcement and not further rules. Let me explain with a parallel. If we have a speed limit and observe that 30% drive faster than the limit, some would say that we should reduce the speed limit. No, my opinion. First of all, the rules should be enforced. Thanks. Thank you, Niels. Are you satisfied with that answers when I asked the commission? Can you live with that statements? They said, we need more money, we need more funds, more enforcement, economic financial instruments, support, coordination. So, is that the thing you want to hear from the panel? Well, I think at least it's very close to our own analysis that is also coming out from the blueprint. So, I mean, what I presented is that we actually see a need for all of these things. We need more funds, but we need also conditionality when using funds. We need to improve monitoring. We need to enforce compliance. So, yes, I think that was a balanced reply. Okay, then we leave that question and go to the second one. An appropriate approach for adapting water infrastructure to expect extreme weather phenomena. And I would like to give the floor to Almond. Thank you, Chairman. So, infrastructure is the next topic. And when talking about the maintenance of infrastructure and having appropriate infrastructure, I would like to split it in three sub-topics. The first one is just the maintenance of the existing infrastructure, which is a challenge at such. If you think, for instance, that in London we have Victorian pipe system. So, if you don't maintain that in a proper way, then you get to leakage rates that are well known. To just choose one example. I could take another example, like, for instance, in Bulgaria they are having very high maintenance leakage rates. That's probably somehow linked to the fact that you didn't pay for water in the past and the way how you could just have a tap running the whole time without fixing it. There was no incentive to have that fixed. You get, of course, very high rates of water use and leakage, just to give some ideas of what that could mean. Then the second aspect is the next two aspects are both upcoming new aspects. In addition to just maintaining old aging infrastructure, there are new challenges. One, climate change is a challenge for water infrastructure. And two, the second one, the one we have already talked about, is new pollutants. Some of them are not that new anymore and well known, but in the end it always ends somehow with the water industry, especially with the way services, like, take that out please. And of course, all this, be that adapting to climate change, that means if you have storm events, if you have heavy rain, if you have more extreme weather phenomena, your normal capacity to absorb rainwater is not sufficient. So you have overflowing seabirds and this creates pollution which is very severe, which is really not to be neglected. So you have to fight somehow with the aging infrastructure, you have to fight with new challenges by climate change, and you have to fight with new demands from, yeah, political sides, societal sides to take out all these new pollutants in the water. So who can pay for that? We know we cannot just come and ask the European Union to pay for it because there is no money available. So what we suggest, because we are here to come up with ideas. One approach we suggest to tackle this problem is what we call the three T's approach. I don't know how many people in the room have heard from these three T's. It's a concept we have presented already this year on the World Water Forum in Marseille. The three T's were developed by the OSCD, and the three T's, that means tariffs, taxes, transfers. As a matter of fact, very often you don't find appropriate solutions because you are not aware of what is your latitude, how can you tackle a problem because you just solve it in the historic way. That means if you improve your infrastructure then you have to consume or pay for it, you could just go up with the tariffs. That's what happens very often in some countries. In other countries you cannot do that because there are fixed tariffs. So you need the money somewhere from the government and if the government doesn't give it, you cannot act. You have all kinds of situations where you can be totally blocked. This three T's approach is an approach which starts with an analytical step to analyze where possible funding can come from. It's not only tariffs. You have a possibility to get funding from taxes or from transfers. Taxes meaning just all kinds of taxes you can imagine. The state is collecting money that is then used for the infrastructure or transfer meaning all type of money that can come from outside. For instance, the one that was mentioned by Gerega, when you are investing in your infrastructure and you get some structural funds from the European Union, for instance, that would be a typical case of such a transfer. So the first thing would be really to analyze your situation and to see how it is in the given situation, how your funding situation is and then of course to find ways to improve this funding situation and to find ways to tackle a given problem. That's why it is extremely important that when financing infrastructure investment that you don't start with just a dogmatic approach like leakage has to go down and then you get a percentage for everyone, but that you approach by case approach that you really look at a situation, a given situation and you look what is most needed in that given situation, where to start with what is the biggest waste, let's say, of whatever is that because you waste what a treatment plant is not in the proper state or is that because it's leakage or whatever and really to take into consideration all the elements that are in place. Yeah, when it comes to this is for the general investment situation if you are interested in this expertise approach, there is documentation available on that, you will find that on our website and on OECD of course too, who developed the thing. When it comes to climate change not only climate change, but in particular when it comes to this phenomena, there is another important element to tackle the problem and this is the land use patterns, like planning management of land use patterns and Euro welcomes very much the basin approach and the sub-basin approach that is chosen by the European Union, that helps a lot. Unfortunately in the first river basin management plans, the water utilities were not always involved in a sufficient way. I guess this is a question of collective learning from both sides. I guess it was not only that there were not enough invited by the national governments, maybe they were invited but they couldn't react in an appropriate way, this again has to be looked at in a case-by-case study, but all I can hear and observe from our members is that in most of the places they would have liked to be much more involved and they are now really working on the second round to be better involved in that because we believe that this is a very important instrument, policy instrument and that it's important that we can bring our expertise in these processes. And now the third point, the new pollutants. I will talk about that later because we are going to talk about that later. Just the first thing to say already now is when we are talking about pollutants there is a reflex which is take it out in wastewater treatment that means end of pipe and Euro is really very strongly engaged to make all decision makers understand that this is really only the last possible way to do it. We have absolutely to go upstream because it's just way too expensive to do it at the end of the pipe and it's not only a question of money that you invest in it this is feasible Switzerland does it and I know there is German Bundesland that is having wastewater treatment which is very well developed but even the places where wastewater treatment is on a very high level, even they say it's not the right thing to tackle the problem of pollution to take it out of priority substances, it's not the right way to take it out of the water treatment, you have to make sure it doesn't get in the water at all and that's what we are right now in the debate on the priority substances what we are really fighting for. Thank you. Thank you very much, I think we will have an interesting discussion then. A brief response by Hoog. Thank you very much, I think to this question we could have two options, one to have more regulation for the new situation like we had before 1989 during the communist it was for each industry a certain amount of water we can use. Now we practically we give up to this we are back to the market economy and we are trying to put the right price and everybody if it's the right price to assume exactly what they could afford and the idea and the approach will be to promote water conservation and this will bring also innovation in the water industry and not only in the water industry in urban area but also in the agriculture because you know it's from a long time in some countries which has water shortage there are irrigation techniques which use very few water with high productivity. Thank you. Thank you very much. Here the question to the commission anything to add was the right direction or would you like to give advice to the audience for other questions? Well I think it's coming back to the comment from Euro. We will have a whole session afterwards talking about economic instruments and prices and so on so I think we will save the discussion and the treaties for that but just recalling that we have the cost recovery and incentive pricing requirements of the water framework directive which certainly goes in that direction. And then something that I didn't think is going on now is that I think what the question actually meant was more what do we need to do in terms of water infrastructure so we have a situation where we have a very risk adverse European water industry maybe worldwide water industry so how are we going to get away from using old techniques how are we going to be innovative in adapting and making sure that we have infrastructure that is actually fit for the new challenges that we are going to face so I think this still remains open but we can leave that for the audience maybe to feed into. Thank you very much for that response we come to the question free and for the theme of reused waters may I ask again I'll move to give the first introduction Yeah again you will have to listen to me but I will start this time with a picture so this this young boy not being so sure whether it's really a good idea to pee in your drinking water I would like to start with this just to recall one thing our water infrastructure was built in a way that we had one type of water for all purposes that means is everything is drinking water quality for whatever use you have and this is going to change it's quite true in a time where water is scarce you have what we call we address sometimes by the word of cascading water qualities like for instance to give an example in our house we have rainwater harvesting is a very old system built 100 years ago and we reactivated it and we are using that for our toilet flushing just to give an example I wouldn't this is not the water quality I would drink we had to make sure in a building in this water system in our house that we don't use it this water in a tap there is one tap in the garden we use it for watering the garden and you have to put a little tag on this tap there to really put it's no drinking water quality so don't drink it so this is what it is all about when we are talking about reuse and recycling of water normally we speak about not the I mean rainwater harvesting is just one of the other alternative water supplies that we have but when we are talking about reuse recycling we normally speak about reusing recycling water that comes out of the domestic houses means what is collected in wastewater treatment plants and what is after the treatment reused normally in agriculture and in industrial uses normally I say because of course there are many alternative ideas to use grey water even in households and so on and so forth so we have different types of water now what happens is that the potential of water reuse and water recycling is much more and not only in places like in Cyprus where it seems that 100% of the water treated in wastewater treatment plants is reused in irrigation as far as I am informed not yet but that's the aim, that's what you are aiming at but this reuse of water recycling of water should not only be an option in countries where water stress is as obvious as in Cyprus I was told that even in Denmark this is an option because if you look at the whole cost and investment that you do in water it can be very often a very good solution to do something less energy intensive but of course to get there you need to have very clear standards because you don't want to run into health problems and if you and Euro is convinced that these standards they should not be established nationally for each country individual and different standards but it would be much much better to have them, no much better it would be absolutely necessary to have them established on European level and soon international countries are going to act in different time the reason why we need to have that done on European level is that we need confidence like if you know that you the salad you are buying was irrigated with reused water you want to be sure that you still want to eat this salad and we have an open market in Europe agricultural products can circulate so that's why it's for the consumer if he knows that there are European standards that are implemented everywhere if you are talking about health risks what we have to keep in our mind it's the same we are talking about the same health risks that we have anyhow when talking about drinking water the only difference is when you have water reused there is a higher probability of contact with all the unwelcomed substances be that viruses or be that bacterial or be that chemical substances I think that's for my introduction just to try to wrap up what it is all about the water reuse and why it is important thank you very much I just would like to give the floor to Niels from agricultural side what do you think about reused water thank you very much Stefan first of all a small remark I've learned after several years that the commission is always right so if you read the impact assessment you can find in volume 2 several places where it's written that Cyprus use 100% the treated wastewater reuse rate was high in Cyprus 100% so you have to learn in Cyprus that in fact you use it 100% so that's very good first let me present some few remarks the starting point for any discussion on water policy and all regulation of agriculture for that matter should be that meeting environmental demands can and must be in line with the goal food security as well as achieving economic development both inside and outside the EU we must remember that Europe is in the middle of an economic crisis and we need all the jobs and growth we can muster and agriculture employees of over 11 million people across Europe is the building block of many other sectors so we have to focus on achieving both economic growth and meeting the environmental challenges in order to do so sustainable intensification of agricultural production has to be achieved as the FAO has stated concerning water reuse for irrigation and industrial purposes water resources are becoming scarce while population growth results in an increasing demand we therefore need a high focus on resource efficiency and intensive water use in a sustainable way in other words produce more food and less water by a sustainable intensive production an effective way to achieve this goal is to reuse water whenever possible let me mention four specific points first point in order to reuse water for industrial and agricultural purposes regulative barriers must be removed so rules should not hinder reuse second point sustainable intensification of agricultural production and food production is not achieved overnight and we therefore need a focus on innovation and methods of production and an ongoing partnership with suppliers of technology and hardware third point water is needed to which processes in order to know where it is appropriate to use reused water and to what quality the water need to be rinsed and last the fourth point we should consider EU standards thanks thank you very much I think the questions are answered I don't give you the floor again I just want to say I just go on to the pharmaceuticals and to the pesticides and yeah but we don't have time sorry I would like to go to question five and six and because we are lacking of knowledge on pharmaceuticals I ask the commission to give a brief introduction on the state of the procedure of the pharmaceuticals and I would like to ask Peter to give us a short introduction to the question five thank you for this very grateful task this is as everyone knows I think an emerging issue and I think it's not surprising that it's an emerging issue and it's not an issue that is going to go away we're firstly speaking by the very nature of things about biologically very potent compounds that once we've used them sometimes end up in our waters and it's not surprising that they have effects what we can expect I think is that with current demographic trends that the problem that these substances may pose in the environment may increase rather than decrease for two reasons firstly people are getting older and as is well known older people consume more on the average more pharmaceuticals than younger people and secondly that we also have redistribution across the territories of member states concentration of population which can contribute to this now the current state of things is that the commission has made a proposal this year I don't think we should discuss this proposal here this is currently being discussed in the European Parliament but just to bring everybody up to speed the commission proposed in its proposal for revision of the so called EQS directive ecological quality standards directive the inclusion of three substances under the directive these are substances where concentrations were above safe levels as defined by our scientific committee and where the issue is widespread these are problems that pose problems of substances that pose problems of toxicity and problems of so called endocrine disruption basically two of the substances pose risk for the reproduction of fish which of course puts into question the biological or the ecological targets of the water framework directive now let me say right away it is our view that there is no silver bullet to deal with these there's no one single measure that can resolve this kind of question at least not in a cost effective way and in an acceptable way our view is that both the EU the member states and industry in order for us to be able to resolve the issues and they must act in a complimentary way Henrietta mentioned that the commission will come forward with a report and the commission will look specifically at in the area of authorization of pharmaceutical substances what can be done I think Henrietta described what the issues were there are issues with veterinary pharmaceuticals where you can take account of environmental issues what can be done and then the so-called human pharmaceuticals where the current legislative framework does not allow this the member states are in charge of health policy they are also in charge of managing public costs and in both of these they act on pharmaceuticals in areas such as antibiotics to reduce resistance to a build-up of resistance to antibiotics to control costs of health policy and the idea our idea is that environment could enter into the basket of issues that could be considered at the level of member states in their policies and finally of course industry is in charge of research and development in this area and this is more the longer term perspective is that once you have identified the issues in the longer term of course the best solution is if you can replace problematic pharmaceuticals by less problematic ones and this requires an effort from industry so those I think are the three parameters those are the three things that need to happen and the commission of course needs to consider to continue developing standards for substances that are actually posing problems in the world including pharmaceuticals thank you very much Peter I would like to give the floor now to Niels and sort of changes object to the pesticides would adding the directive on sustainable use of pesticides to cross-compines help reduce pesticide risks please Niels thanks again first general comment on regulations we need fewer simpler and more targeted rules and solutions and the rules should be respected by states and be respected by farmers we do not need additional rules the aim of the cap reform should be simplification it is unacceptable to just keep adding new rules without looking at the entire picture each new rule means a new administrative burden on farmers and we need to simplify regulations and reduce costs not the opposite when we look at pesticide risks we need to get the proportions right we need to target or afford to the areas where we have the greatest effect in terms of minimizing risk first we need to look at the approval system this is where we decide which pesticides can be used at the European market so this is where policymakers and regulators can make crucial decisions in terms of reducing risk secondly we have point sources third there is the risk of spillage and dilution of pesticides by targeting regulation to point sources we can also achieve a lot in terms of reducing risks to the aquatic environment thirdly it matters how pesticides are applied the behavior of the farmer or whoever is using pesticides determine what their aquatic environment is through education and proper use and maintenance of equipment we can also achieve a lot thanks so thank you very much sorry Georgie I think I would like to open the floor now to the audience and bring you back probably to the question one if possible and go through again or we can start the other way around please state your name and institution again and ask your question or make a brief statement thank you I'm an economist and economists are often accused of being accountants but I'm going to break my my statement I suppose into a statement of accounting and a question of economics the statement of accounting is that Niels told us that 11 million people in the EU are farmers which leaves the other 98% of the EU population which is not farmers who balance these costs and benefits of various regulations my account, my economic question is about property rights and people who are familiar with economics know that it's important to figure out who has the right to pollute or who has the right to be free of pollution and I'd like to state this question and ask a yes or no answer let's say from Ann and Nielsen and potentially the other panelists should industrial or agricultural users in a sense should they have the right to discharge dirty water or is there a right do they have to abide by discharging clean water that is should the regulations require that the water be as clean as taken in by either the farmers or industrialists when it is discharged or should the problem be left to the environment or to the service providers thank you in the same direction the question yes Claes and Haan conservation of clean air and water in Europe I think that the legislation already in place gives clear standards to which water should be comply to be regarded as sufficiently safe to be emitted into the service water so I think I already try to answer the previous question it's not the purpose of the industry it's not the purpose of the industry to pollute the environment we are citizens and we try to act responsibly as far as possible and I think look at the track record of industry we are delivering to the implementation of the IED and also other parts in that respect reading the blueprint I think a very brave document has been published that enables achieving the goals of getting a better environment however I also see a missed opportunity the pollution is directed to industry and there are many non-industrial sources for which environmental quality standards have not been derived so in this respect I do disagree with Juro that say well you have to do it upstream upstream it's done by a regulation called REACH if the REACH regulations allows a substance it's evident that society wants that substance if it then enters up in the environment that's for the water cleaners to take it out because substances are not polluters polluters are the entities that introduce the substance into the aquatic environment and if you want to make a profit by cleaning the water you better deliver by taking it out thank you another statement or question in this direction in the back please hello this is Andrew Farmer from the Institute for European Environmental Policy I'd just like to comment on the issue of cross compliance and the statement about adding rules I want to be very very clear that the requirements of cross compliance whether it's on pesticides, nitrates, habitats directive, animal welfare whatever are not additional rules on farmers the only rules that farmers have to comply with the only additional requirement may be in terms of administratively demonstrating compliance but the requirements arising for environmental protection are not additional rules it's simply saying that tax payers money given to those farmers should be conditional on meeting the legal obligations which are already in place so they're not additional rules in that sense so thank you I would like to give the floor to Anne and Niels and then to the water director to give his view thank you for the question being not an economist but an engineer of course my first reflex is always to discuss what do we understand by dirty water or by environmental water and discharging and the reply has already been given to a large extent I think are we allowed to discharge dirty water well not in my opinion because of course are discharged permits somehow it is the task of the competent authorities to relate that with the quality objective that they have to meet for the overall water framework directive so and then it is a matter and I agree there with Klaas then it's not only looking of course at industry as point is charged and that was what my plea was here to take an overall view I really think that this coordination and coherence between legislation is of extreme importance we were discussing upstream and again Klaas gave the reply but I was just about to make the same comment Rich also has an environmental component to look at so it starts with registration you as a producer I mean I as a producer we have of course to take into account the environmental exposure including the water so then we are of course in our risk assessment and our more extended reports and then that finds its way to what is called safety data sheets so that the users know exactly how to use that substance so I really want to make a plea here it's not because the substance is hazardous that they immediately would find its way in a hazardous as an ultimate hazard to the surface water that's not the case because there are operational conditions installed and risk management measures then of course if these are all complied with and if they indeed at the start were the right ones there is a readjustment to do on the road we all are learning I would say but then you would not find of course a significant risk in the water an unacceptable risk in the water so that is for me the upstream so if there are still substances there if they are compliant let's say with what the original producer of them had imagined in their first step into the authorization process also in the evaluation process then in principle this risk should be acceptable if not of course then we need to get the coordination between the legislations working that coordination should be and we very much underline should be a coordination looking at all possible measures targeting all possible sources and so yes discharging yes discharging but never discharging in such a way that at the end of the day the quality standard could not be met by the member states and are we paying yes we are paying so there are different systems as you probably are more aware of being an economist but industry is of course paying to get water in the first place discharge taxes also at work so yes I think and that's where I would like to end so thank you Niels please thank you first of all I think it's not 100% the same to have an industrial production and an agricultural production because the agricultural production is in the free nature and it is impossible to have an agricultural production which do not influence on the environment if you go and plow the soil you will influence the environment so it's very different to the industry where you only have a chimney and the wastewater and if we reduce the production in EU to lower the emissions there will be an increase in other parts of the world areas where the environmental pressure is much higher so in fact we just support the problems and globally increase the environmental pressure when this is said I don't say that we shouldn't take care of the environment we should do anything we can to reduce the pollution or the pollution from the agricultural production concerning the other question on cross compliance I must agree that it's not adding chemicals but I just want to give an example why I'm very disfavor of the cross compliance we have two farms we have one farm 10 hectare with full irrigation it have an over abstraction of water with 50% we have another farm 500 hectares 5 hectare and it has an over abstraction of 5% so the penalty with the cross compliance would be for the small farm which really had an over abstraction of 50% it would have a penalty of 100 euro while the big farm large farm with only 5 hectares and only a very small over abstraction would have a penalty of 5000 euro after my opinion it is not a fair solution let's take another example if you are employed in the ministry of justice or transport and you pay by this government if you get a parking fee or a speed ticket should you then have a 10% cut in your income I wouldn't say that would be reasonable you should have the same cut as everybody else thanks Helga what do you think related to the water pollution there are standards the used water could be discharged what is new with this environmental quality standards it's the approach that you have to look on the river and even if you have a standard you have to go back if you have 100 let's say west water treatment plants discharging at the standard will be a disaster if you have one will be nothing yes this is the approach with this environmental quality standards which you'll have to look in the river in fact the water framework directive changed the philosophy till the water framework directive it was this targeted the point sources like west water treatment plant it was not looking on the river now the water framework directing is looking on the river but also keeping the west water treatment plant then this will be probably the idea of have trades of permits will be an issue that already applied it was already applied in the United States but it was the case of a lake the case of will be a little bit more complicated then related to the agriculture I wanted to say that with agriculture the most important thing it's the awareness and training of the farmers it's easy to check on the point sources but it's impossible to check on the point sources it's very much depending on because you cannot stay near each farmer to see if it's washing the tank somewhere or it's very very important and then you just see on the groundwater level of these substances related to the explanation that they have already this obligation yes but as we have seen the commission it's proposing to extend this vulnerable zones in order to have a greater impact on the improving of water quality thank you thank you any further questions from the audience yes please yeah thank you Mr. Char Gornan Orian from the coalition clean Baltic comment on the commission presented then as one of the blueprint proposal extending of nitrogen to vulnerable zones according to the nitrate directive that's one proposal and I think it's very good of course and that should be then the minimum standard we have in the region where I come from the Baltic Sea region for example one country Poland have 1.5% of the whole Poland is then 1912 but they have 40% of all agricultural land in the Baltic Sea catchment in Poland so that makes sense but I would also like to say that actually with just fulfilling extending then the nitrate vulnerable zone you will not solve all the problems with the nitrate and with the groundwater and with the atrophication and the reason is then of course that it's when you spread the land your what time of the year if it's during the growing season or not if not it will leak if you spread it during winter time it will leak but it's also then more related to the nitrogen nutrient surplus you have per hectare it's a nutrient surplus that is the driver then to leak then to the groundwater or leaking then to the surface water so if we really shall deal with this we have to discuss then what drives this and that's the question then to Nils Peter Nuring here I would like to ask you then you're saying here we're talking about agriculture production and exporting then our problem to other regions in the world if we have stronger requirements here but would agriculture sector also will be willing then to try to solve the Baltic atrophication problem and run then practices and nutrient fertilization nutrient balance fertilization in a way that we can cope with this that's my question thank you a similar question slightly different my name is Lesha Whitmer in this case with my head on from women for water partnership I would like to make three comments I think in your first question there is one very important element missing you say enforcement and funds and I would say participation and information because they can help largely with battling against water pollution maybe not in all cases of the chemicals and the pharmaceuticals but a lot of other pollutions I would suggest can be tackled by the average citizen and even smaller companies in Europe the second one is about pharmaceuticals this is something that a lot of women in Europe have been asking attention for and battling for for years now so number one we're very very happy is finally in the blueprint we're not so happy that then the next well there's not much we can do about it so we would suggest one of the good ideas is to really bring the conversation up to speed with the pharmaceutical industry but also with our experts on sanitation and toilets because a lot of this stuff just goes through the toilet from our households, from our hospitals from our nursing homes so maybe there is technology there that can help us the pharmaceutical industry says they have solutions but nobody has been willing to pay for them yet so maybe that's where the conversation should start and there was also a conversation on the green infrastructure and there are some experiments going on in the world on actually asking an eco-service from our wetlands for instance in addressing the problems of getting the pharmaceuticals out of our waters again and last but not least I think that one of the interesting things of reach is that it actually has another goal that is to give information on the public on what chemicals are doing maybe we can add to that and make clear what the chemicals are doing or not because in some cases you might be right they could not be harmful but then people do not know and have demands on information simply because they do not understand vice versa they might be very very bad for all of us and information might help to reduce the use of the chemicals thank you thank you and there was a third one in the back, yes please I represent the organic sector I want to make a small statement I form a new group well-grouped in communication it's an important step to assess achievements and needs for further action in EU water policy it's committed to contribute to further policy development to ensure a sustainable management of water resources we believe that organic farming is the best practice to protect water sources and has positive impacts on water management through prohibition of synthetic pesticides reduces cost for drink water suppliers to eliminate contaminants stemming from agriculture reduced nutrient leaching through crop rotation lower livestock densities and increased water retention potential in soils through improved soil structure and and regarding the water framework directive types of measures including input reduction limiting fertilizers organic farming practices solar erosion land cover water saving measures irrigation efficiency and land use change which reduce runoff and enhanced biodiversity should be part of RBMP so thank you I would like to give the floor to Niels to answer the question about the nitrate surplus thank you very much we will of course like to go into a discussion with the European Commission and with the national government to fulfill the water framework directive we will like to together with member states environmental NGOs and others in a constructive way try to find the best solutions so we can get good water quantity and quality get better nature and reduce greenhouse gases and at the same time increase production because there is an increase in demand for agricultural products for food and for energy and other things in the future so we will really like to go into constructive debate to find the best solutions how can we achieve the good agricultural or the good environmental and to understand that thanks thank you and Georgie please for the pharmaceuticals not only but about GWP you said that participation and information is not in the question probably because it is already in the directive and we had every member state to present to the commission houses has been carried out during the development of the river basin management plan here it is an issue which we had the discussion with NGOs in our country participation from the perspective of authority is too much we could provide consultation but participation depend on the people to participate and here I can see the role of NGOs if the participates is low I said to our friends in Romania it's also a failure of the NGOs related to pharmaceuticals I think that the solution are in 1998 I seen in Japan a wastewater treatment 500 million US dollars with ozonization with membrane and ion exchange residues nothing will the water in this water treatment plan was more clean up than I never seen but it was just for demonstration you know the Japanese like to impress the people because when I ask 500 million US dollars okay this is very expensive this with the green infrastructure it's already covered and it was included in our at least now Romanian river basin management plan both from the flood management point of view but flood management with the water framework directive and also I agree that this information to the public should be intensive to the substances but on the other hand you know especially related to pharmaceuticals this is very tricky issues you know I took the Klofenak when you have paints you need to take it and you probably if the industry has this which is also wastewater treatment plan this will be good because the problem is when it's an industry you can go there and say from tomorrow you will not discharge this is from the European commission order and you will not discharge these substances and otherwise will stop but this will be very difficult to tackle when you speak about population and everything will going to the future of course the idea will be as I said to have a technology which will be affordable the technology exist but I cannot say that this will be affordable in this moment however this is not at the beginning this endocrine disruptors is a discussion from a long period of time even a human naturally are producing these endocrine substances but the idea will be how this will manage and in this respect probably the innovation and in this field and the funds for promoting the innovation will be very important thank you very much Gioge I have to excuse the commission I have to leave the neutral position and make a statement the cost of a fourth step in a wastewater treatment plant is about two coffees per month and not 500 million for one wastewater treatment plant is about two cups of coffee a month which would increase the wastewater treatment price in Switzerland that's just I go back to the neutral position I just close and start again I think we have the last round is there any urgent question out there if not then I would like to give the floor to Anne for her last statement and then to Almut and then I will wrap up the session thank you thank you last statement I think all in all the way we currently look at what the commission has been proposing in the blueprint does make a lot of sense in our opinion really a good step forward a lot of work to do that's obvious from all sides also from us but I think the analysis presented is really an excellent basis to start working on my last statement was indeed what I said that there is really a need to do some I would say better as Mr Potocinic mentioned to have the implementation done in a better way to do it I would say in a sensible way also not pinpoint to some particular industries but look at this as a common task ahead of us trying to find the best solution for all parties the most appropriate for environment the most appropriate for industry as stakeholder I would also want to say don't underestimate what reaches already delivering just by the simple fact of starting a new register that's already huge also on the reuse we didn't have time but I want to say reuse is fine and whenever we can save water I think we should do it but I think we should not lose out of sight that reuse in say can never be an objective I mean coming from a manufacturing process I mean looking at that scope it cannot be an objective in say we always need to carefully consider how much new materials are we putting in so it's always about a careful balance I couldn't develop it further but I think that's the point I wanted also to make there and with that on the participation from LECA I very much agree to that I think also industry should participate more and get to know who are the other users of the water basin or smaller unit where I am because of course that determines the risks of the operation so we would also very much of course be in favor of having such stakeholders or local structures and with that I would like to leave it and leave the rest for coffee break thank you then I'll move please thank you Stefan yes I feel like answering to the two cup of coffees before you get one cup of coffee I think that should make it for the fourth session if we are saying it's not the right place to do it end of pay we are not only addressing financial costs and you have to be aware that the two cup of coffees they add up to all the other cup of coffees it costs to fix the leakage and invest in getting less vulnerable to climate change and so on and so forth and then it's a bit more than only two cups of coffees but come back to my statement is really to have a look at the whole system of water and that euro expresses really a heavy concern about this as I called it that reflects just to ask like the guys at the end of the pipe please take everything off that all the others put in it just without really thinking whether they wouldn't be a mean to make sure it doesn't get in the water of course we are addressing the polluter pays principle and thank you Peter for your introduction to this point really making clear it's not as easy as that talking about the pharmaceutical industry in the place where they produce like for instance endocrine disruptors better known as the pill that this is not the place where it goes into the water circle it goes in a way in the water circle which is very difficult to control and we are very aware of that and Klaus to come back to your intervention it's not about saying we want to ban the pill and feminism is over and all that as it was translated by MEP it is about responsibility what we want is really talking about responsibility we have some experience in the field of pesticides which is on one hand of course you always first need legislation otherwise nothing will happen but then you have it's about behavior and you need sometimes just to sit on a round table and to develop best practice and to really make sure that everyone is contributing from its side and in the field of pesticides there is more to be done of course we are in favor of cross compliance but in the field of pharmaceuticals we believe that there is a lot of things that can be done that have not yet been done in terms of preventing these substances to get into the water cycle and we think it's an important role that we play to point a finger at that and to ask really to reinforce the several measures that are available to better source control and legislation is one and the behavior awareness raising is another and doctors have a role to play consumers I mean the people who are taking everyone has a part after responsibility in it and the pharmaceutical sector has a big big responsibility in all this and these people have to take their share of this responsibility be that by paying or be that by at least reflecting their own behavior maybe eventually change their behavior and make another choice to take less of it or another product as soon as it's available Thank you and the last statement from the commission Henry please Thank you very much I just wanted to very briefly mention two parallel initiatives to the blueprint I would say that maybe could help us take some of these issues forward we've heard a lot about how complying with the law and especially the water framework directive in cross compliance etc will take all the farmers out of works and that we will not have enough food but I think we also need to look at this from the other side because I think we have all failed a little bit to argue how improved environmental protection implementation of the EU legislation green infrastructure etc will actually benefit jobs and growth and that's something that we are taking forward under the European semester exercise trying to show that actually doing all these things have very positive effects for jobs and growth then we talked about water reuse and I just wanted to mention that under the European innovation partnership for water that the commission referred to this morning this is one of the priorities that has been selected and we are going to call for demonstration demonstrations on how we can actually implement this fit for purpose water at the European level so all of the people who here who have good ideas and think this is the way forward I invite you to follow that process as well and thank you very much for the contributions thank you very much I was ok he gets the floor again very brief I would like to suggest that we follow the FAO recommendation sustainable of agriculture production and as mentioned earlier let us gather agriculture environmental NGOs and authorities to discuss the environmental status the environmental goals to understand and agree on the challenges and together find the best solutions solutions not only in relation to water and agriculture but also solutions in relation to nature and greenhouse gases thanks and you too no ok thank you very much all the panelists the first question we talked about money innovations enforcement participation and involvement so that kind of stuff and I asked the commission are you satisfied with that discussion I think we can leave that then the second one we actually didn't discuss in the sense you thought in the presentation sorry for that then three and for the reuse I think there was sort of a consensus that the legislation has to be done on European level we have to be careful on that the reuse water and so forth I think that's on a good way and in the last two points the five and the six I think I didn't succeed with sort of coming forward with these topics we have the different positions don't do it in the waste water treatment plan just look at the source the human being is also a source of hormones I'll move it because control of a human being of hormones is extremely difficult I can tell you and when you and when you not only when you fell in love so and if you look at the end of pipe solution you don't just focus on pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors you have how many million chemicals produce you in your I think 100,000 or even more and most of them end up somehow in the water and you can do whatever you want you will find them and the end of pipe solution is one of them which can reduce this amount of chemicals into the water so I think there unfortunately to the commission we have sort of a different positions I think you have to work further on that with that I would like to close the session you have only time for one coffee only buy one of the waste water treatment plants with that coffee and not two of them and I would like you further interesting conference here in two. Thank you very much