Council of the European Union adopts wastewater discharge directives
Key Highlights
- The Council of the European Union adopted a directive to update the list of pollutants affecting surface water and groundwater.
- The updated directive tightens environmental standards for several substances and strengthens monitoring across the EU.
The Council of the European Union formally adopted the directive on updating the list of pollutants affecting surface water and groundwater, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals and PFAS.
According to data used for the water framework directive, 46% of surface waters and 24% of groundwater in the EU fail to meet the existing environmental quality standards, with significant differences between member states.
The EU has already put in place rules for monitoring and reducing the release of identified dangerous substances and pollutants in surface water and groundwater, but the updated directive tightens environmental standards for several substances and strengthens monitoring across the EU. This update amends the existing water framework directive, the groundwater directive, and the directive on environmental quality standards, aligning EU water policy with the latest scientific evidence.
Several pollutants which are already on the list will now be subject to tighter environmental quality standards. The EU-wide list has now been expanded and updated, including pharmaceuticals (such as painkillers), pesticides, bisphenols, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, referred to as “forever chemicals”). For the first time, the directive introduces rules to assess the cumulative risk of combined substances.
To support future reviews, the directive also added microplastics and antimicrobial resistance indicators to the EU’s water watchlists, which help track substances of emerging concern.
The directive includes effects-based monitoring of surface water to assess the impact of chemical mixtures. EU countries may use remote sensing and earth observation technologies for monitoring, and they must report on biological quality, chemical quality, and the overall status of water bodies for more reliable data across the EU.
The next step is to for the European Parliament to hold the final vote on the directive, expected by the end of March. EU countries will have until 2039 to comply with the new standards for both surface water and groundwater. For substances with revised and more stringent environmental quality standards in surface water, the compliance deadline is 2033.