The European Parliament’s Environment Committee failed to take a step forward in its ambition to protect Europe’s water resources under the EU Water Resilience Strategy. It adopted a report that has been weakened by the conservative and far-right members, cancelling out important additional efforts to make Europe more climate and water resilient. The emphasis on the need to ban all PFAS and address PFAS pollution at source has been seriously weakened, while the pressure that pesticides and intensive farming have on European water bodies is no longer formally acknowledged.
In the meantime, Europe’s water resources are threatened by pollution and current policies on their protection are poorly implemented – according to the Commission’s monitoring results on the Water Framework Directive (WFD) implementation and the European Environment Agency’s 2024 report (1).
Only 26.8% of European surface waters meet the good chemical status standards set by the WFD in 2021. Agricultural pesticide use remains a common contributor. TFA, a common metabolite of PFAS pesticides, is detected in water resources all across Europe, even the most pristine ones. To date, 30 PFAS pesticides are approved and used widely on European crop fields.
There is a clear need for additional action to improve current policies. Manon Rouby, Policy Officer & Legal Adviser at PAN Europe: “For the EU Water Resilience Strategy to be meaningful, Europe's waters must be protected from pesticide and PFAS pollution. The vote is a missed opportunity to address pollution at the source.”
The report supports establishing EU-wide quality standards for PFAS total in groundwater and surface water, updating the legal limit of PFAS in drinking water, and calls for the financial support of farmers to adopt low-input and organic farming practices to reduce pesticide impact on water quality. However, other amendments related to PFAS and pesticide pollution were seriously watered down. These include:
- Weakening the phase out of all PFAS, keeping the exemption of those with “essential use” and limiting the phase-out to “consumer goods”;
- Deleting the initial recognition of agriculture as the most significant source of pressure on both surface and groundwater due to water use and pollution from the intensive use of nutrients and pesticides;
- The replacement of strong enforcement of EU water laws with calls for generic implementation under the WFD, without specifying the 2027 deadline;
- The weakening of policy coherence across sectors, particularly agriculture, due to vague integration language;
- The failure to address water pollution driven by agriculture by diluting the precautionary and polluters pay principles and not committing to stronger enforcement of existing regulations.
Although the report acknowledges the widespread pollution by PFAS in european water and the detection of PFAS trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in drinking water all over Europe, concrete measures to tackle this pollution are, however, missing.
“Members of Parliament rightly point out that the ultra-short PFAS TFA is accumulating in drinking water everywhere in Europe. This is alarming for public health. We call for the water resilience strategy to include measures for phasing out all TFA sources, including the use of PFAS pesticides,” added Salomé Roynel, Policy Officer at PAN Europe.
Following the vote in the ENVI Committee, all MEPs will have their say on the European Water Resilience Strategy in a plenary vote in the European Parliament. PAN Europe calls on all members of the Parliament to take strong action to protect Europe’s water resources from pollution, including that from pesticides.
Contact:
- Manon Rouby, Policy Officer & Legal Adviser, manon [at] pan-europe.info,+336 43 24 33 79
- Dr Angeliki Lysimachou, Head of Science & Policy, angeliki [at] pan-europe.info, +32 496 39 29 30
- Tjerk Dalhuisen, Communications Officer tjerk [at] pan-europe.info, +31 6 146 991 26
Notes:
(1) https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/europes-state-of-wate...
Read more:
- See PAN Europe’s work on banning PFAS pesticides and TFA
- See the statement of support from over 450 scientists calling on the EU to swiftly update its water pollution standards.
