FLOOD MANAGEMENT (5540/06)
Letter from Ian Pearson MP, Minister of
State for Climate Change & Environment, Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs
I am writing to update the committee on this
dossier. The Council's formal Common Position was adopted on 23
November 2006. This reflects the political agreement reached at
the Environment Council on 27 June 2006, with unanimous support.
The UK was able to support the compromise at Council on the basis
that the negotiations had produced a significantly more flexible
Directive than the Commission's original proposals. As anticipated,
the compromise reached was very much as described in Option 4
of the partial Regulatory Impact Assessment, submitted with the
Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum 5540/06 of 2 June 2006.
Adoption of the Common Position means that the
Directive can now proceed to the next stage of the co-decision
process, the second reading in the European Parliament. Transmission
to the European Parliament, triggering the fixed timescale for
the second reading will take place during December. We can therefore
expect the European Parliament's second reading to be completed
by late April at latest. Adoption in plenary thought likely to
be on 28 March. As normal, the possibility of a second reading
agreement between the institutions will be explored by the incoming
German Presidency of the Council. The UK will be concerned to
preserve as far as possible the flexibilities agreed by the Council
in any second reading deal, or at any possible subsequent conciliation
if no agreement is reached.
20 December 2006
Letter from Ian Pearson MP to the Chairman
I am writing to further update the Committee
on this dossier. The Council of Ministers' formal Common Position
was transmitted to the European Parliament on 18 January 2007
triggering the beginning of the second reading. Amendments to
the Common Positior were voted on by the Parliament's Committee
on Environment, Health and Food Safety on 27 February. A plenary
session vote on the second reading is expected on or about the
24 April. In the meantime, negotiations will take place with a
view to reaching a second reading deal between the Council and
the European Parliament, and a series of meeting has been scheduled
for that purpose. There are reasonable prospects for a deal, althougl
some of the amendments as they stand would not be acceptable to
the UK or to the Council as a whole.
A consolidated list of the amendments agreed
by the Environment Committee has been produced, and runs to 42
items. These have been discussed between Member States at official
level, and the UK is able to fully support the approach proposed
by the German Presidency in responding to them.
The rapporteur (Richard Seeber, Austria) has
highlighted nine topics within the amendments in his draft recommendation.
He is keen that amendments concerning the effects of climate change
should be incorporated, especially in relation to assessing future
flood risk in the preliminary risk assessments.
The UK would be happy to see further emphasis
on taking into account the effects of climate change, and although
some Member States have concerns about the detailed wording, it
should not prove too difficult to find mutually acceptable text.
Mr Seeber also wishes to bring forward a number
of deadlines in the Directive, relating to the completion of the
Preliminary Risk Assessments (from 2012 to 2010), and to the cutoff
date for completing work which is to be regarded as "existing
work", to be used on a transitional basis (from 2010 to 2009).
On the Preliminary Risk Assessments (PRAs), it is hard to see
the benefit in reducing the timescale for completion, from three
years after the Directive is brought into force, to one year after.
The PRAs are essentially a procedural stage, and there would be
no change to the dates for preparation of flood maps and flood
risk management plans. The rapporteur's stated motivation is that
he wishes to "ensure a fast moving procedure". The Council,
including the UK, has a strong preference for retaining the timing
set out in the Common Position. These timing issues are likely
to prove difficult to resolve between the institutions.
Next rapporteur highlights amendments applying
the recently agreed "comitology with scrutiny" procedure
to the Directive (ie involving the European Parliament in agreeing
implementing measures). There is disagreement over the scope of
the measures to which this should be applied—the Commission
and Council do not believe that specifying the technical formats
for the transmission of data by Member States to the Commission
should go through this more cumbersome procedure.
There significant amendments concerning the
degree of integration between this Directive and the Water Framework
Directive (WFD). It is likely that compromise can be found on
strengthening the requirement to co-ordinate work on the two Directives.
The UK supports full co-ordination between the two, but believes
it is important to recognise that the processes and stakeholders
for flood risk management are not identical to those for water
quality. Amendments concerning the integration of flood risk management
plans with river basin management plans under the WFD, and of
public consultations under the two Directives, may prove difficult
areas on which to reach agreement.
Concerning the recognition of the importance
of retention areas, the integration of flood management issues
into other policy areas, and the solidarity principle (ie avoiding
actions that damage neighbours), it should be possible to find
acceptable compromise wording that takes in the thrust of the
amendments.
On the right to use existing work, the Environment
Committee has approved amendments that we see as mutually contradictory.
One amendment would permit the indefinite use of existing work
that provides comparable protection against flooding to the Directive.
The basic premise of this appears very sensible, emphasising public
protection as the standard to be met. However, its indefinite
timescale is not compatible with Article 13 of the Common Position,
which allows the use of existing work only transitionally up to
2015, during the first phase of the Directive. Another amendment
pulls in the opposite direction, effectively eliminating any protection
for existing work used transitionally, by requiring that it should
be fully aligned to the detail of the Directive, as well as bringing
forward the cutoff date for completing it. Clearly accepting both
amendments would not produce a workable outcome, and some kind
of compromise—I hope at least preserving the degree of flexibility
found in the Common Position—will be needed.
Finally, the rapporteur refers to an amendment
requiring an assessment of the economic and environmental effectiveness
of existing flood defences. This is unlikely to be acceptable
to the Council in its current form.
Interestingly, the rapporteur does not highlight
another group of amendments which are of very high concern to
the UK. These add in further detail, to be included in the PRAs
and the flood risk and hazard maps. One amendment would require
that high probability (ie frequent) floods should be mapped; another
would require mapping all potential sources of pollution, whether
diffuse or from point sources. These are proposals that the UK
successfully argued against in the Council at first reading, and
if adopted would give rise to significant costs, as the partial
RIA submitted last June set out. While compromise wording may
be found on some of the less significant amendments (eg around
some of the detail in the PRAs), it would be extremely difficult
for the UK to accept such mandatory additions the mapping requirements
of the Directive. The Council collectively adheres firmly to the
Common Position on these points, and the German Presidency will
argue the Council's case accordingly.
It may be of interest to the Committee that
some 62 amendments were originally submitted. My officials have
made a sustained effort to brief MEPs on the issues from a UK
perspective, including through the organisation of a seminar on
flood policy in the European Parliament, with speakers from both
Defra and the Environment Agency. One of our particular points
was that the provisions of the Directive are not well-suited to
the management of sewerage floods, important though we believe
them to be. It is very welcome that an amendment removing the
flexibility to exclude sewerage floods from the scope of the Directive
was amongst those rejected by the Environment Committee.
23 March 2007
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