The European Commission to propose new rules on drinking water

The European Commission will release its legislative proposal on the Revision of the Drinking Water Directive (DWD) by the end of 2017.

That’s the main result of the Commission evaluation of the DWD which has been the cornerstone of EU drinking water policy since 1998. According to the evaluation, the DWD has improved the quality of drinking water in the EU, but it has not led to the development of a harmonised EU-wide framework on the safety of materials and products in contact with drinking water.

Each Member State has set its own system to approve materials and products in contact with drinking water by leading to a regulatory patchwork: a material approved in one Member State is not approved in other Member States and vice-versa. As a consequence, there are potentially different levels of consumer protection across EU Member States. In addition, this situation constitutes a barrier to intra-EU trade in materials and products in contacts with drinking water.

This is one of the issue that will be addressed by the Commission proposal. The European Drinking Water Industry Alliance is keen to contribute, as it already did in the past, to the debate on the elaboration European rules on materials and products in contact with drinking water.

In particular, EDW believes that the Revision of the Drinking Water Directive should lead to the development of a harmonised regulatory framework on materials and products in contact with drinking water ensuring that all European citizens benefit from a high level of human health protection.

This will be one of the main topics to be discussed during the 3rd Symposium on Materials and Products in Contact with Drinking Water, organised by the European Drinking Water (EDW), Eureau, the Copper Alliance and PlasticsEurope on May 18th in Brussels (for the full agenda and registration details click here).

This event will bring together policy-makers and other stakeholders and will be the occasion to have an open dialogue on the Revision of the DWD.

In the next month, the Commission will finalise its impact assessment to judge which is the best option to harmonise requirements on materials and products in contact with drinking water. Based on the impact assessment, the Commission proposal is expected to be released before the end of the year.