CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION AND USE OF
TRANS-BOUNDARY WATERCOURSES AND INTERNATIONAL LAKES
(22712)
12250/01
COM(01) 483
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Draft Council Decision relating to the conclusion, on behalf of the Community, of the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary Watercourses and International Lakes.
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| Legal base: |
Articles 174(4) and 300(2)EC; qualified majority voting
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| Document originated:
| 17 August 2001 |
| Forwarded to the Council:
| 20 August 2001 |
| Deposited in Parliament:
| 2 October 2001 |
| Department: |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration:
| EM of 2 November 2001 |
| Previous Committee Report:
| None |
| To be discussed in Council:
| No date set |
| Committee's assessment:
| Legally important |
| Committee's decision:
| Cleared, but further information requested
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Background
5.1 The Protocol on Water and Health to
the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary
Watercourses and International Lakes seeks to strengthen national
and international actions aimed at the protection and sound management
of surface, ground and drinking waters, and will require parties
to take the measures needed for the provision of safe drinking
water and adequate sanitation, in order to prevent, control and
reduce water-related disease and to protect water resources used
as sources of drinking water. It also requires parties to carry
out monitoring and reporting of any water-related disease should
this occur.
5.2 In addition to individual countries,
regional economic integration organisations, such as the Community,
may accede, subject to the proviso that, if none of its members
become a party, that organisation is then bound by all the obligations
set out in the Protocol.
The current proposal
5.3 The purpose of this proposed Council
Decision is simply that the Community should accede to the Protocol.
The Government's view
5.4 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 2 November
2001, the Minister of State for the Environment at the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Michael Meacher) says
that the Community has already adopted legislation in this field
which meets all the substantive obligations imposed by the Protocol,
but that, as no Member State has ratified it, the proposal would
in effect give the Community exclusive external competence, including
the Protocol's reporting and international co-operation obligations.
He says that the UK is supportive of the Protocol's aims, which
also provide a framework within which the candidate countries
of central and eastern Europe can move towards the Community's
standards of water related health, and expects to ratify it once
it becomes clear that those countries themselves see the Protocol
as the appropriate mechanism for fulfilling those mechanisms.
5.5 However, the Minister also points out
that the transference of exclusive competence in this area to
the Community would run counter to government policy, which is
that, as a general rule, wherever there is any residual national
competence, Member States, as well as the Community, should be
parties to international agreements, thereby protecting their
ability to influence and participate in such agreements.
Conclusion
5.6 It is clear that the only significant
issue arising on this proposal relates to the competence involved
which, as things stand, it would transfer to the Community in
this area. Whilst we have noted the Minister's concerns on this,
one way of forestalling the problem would presumably be for a
Member State — if necessary, the UK — to ratify the
Protocol, in which case, if we understand the position correctly,
the question of exclusive Community competence would no longer
arise. It is not immediately apparent from the Minister's Explanatory
Memorandum whether this option has been considered, and, whilst
we see no need to withhold clearance on this account, we would
welcome his comments on it.
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