The EU's Stringent Jurisdictional Protection of Its Surface Waters

Abstract

In 2000, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Water Framework Directive, whose ultimate objective was to attain a good ecological status for all surface, transitional, coastal and groundwaters in the Union by the end of 2015. The directive gave Member States a large margin of discretion in the implementation of its provisions. However, the quality of European waters remains largely mediocre. In that context, two judgments delivered by the Court of Justice, one in 2015 and one in 2022, provide a strict interpretation of the directive's provisions in the domain of surface waters. The first establishes that any deterioration of the ecological status, even if small, is prohibited. The second specifies that, except for derogation, temporary, short-term degradations are not allowed either. The conclusions of those cases are applicable to other types of water bodies and may lead to an improvement in their management.