The European Commission is calling for actions by a number of Member States on water and wastewater issues in its latest infringement decisions on for failures to comply with obligations under EU law.

The Commission has referred Spain to Court for not ensuring that the requirements on individual heat and hot water metering in for all existing multi-apartment and multi-purpose buildings laid down in the Energy Efficiency Directive are complied with. The Spanish national transposition measures has imposed the requirement only with regard to new buildings built after 2007.

The Commission has separately taken Cyprus and Italy to the Court of Justice for failure to properly treat urban waste water. The EC said that Cyprus has failed to provide a waste water collecting system in 31 agglomerations and has also failed to ensure that the urban waste water entering collecting systems is subject to appropriate treatment. As, in some cases, full compliance is not expected by the Cypriot authorities before 2027, the Commission has decided to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.

In a second Court case against Italy regarding water pollution, the EC said Italy is failing to ensure that all agglomerations with a population of more than 2 000 are provided with collecting systems for urban waste water. The Commission said that 620 agglomerations in 16 Regions (Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Marche, Puglia, Sardegna, Sicilia, Toscana, Umbria, Valle d'Aosta, and Veneto) are in breach of EU rules on collection or treatment of urban waste water.

The Commission has now decided to refer Greece to the Court of Justice and asked for financial sanctions for failing to protect its waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. Since an initial Court ruling against Greece in April 2015, Greece has established 12 new Nitrate Vulnerable Zones; however, the Greek authorities have not established action programmes for these new zones.

Four years later since the EC first raised the issue, the problem is still not fully resolved. The Commission is calling on the Court of Justice of the European Union to impose financial sanctions on Greece in the form of a lump sum of € 2,639.25 per day and a daily penalty payment of € 23.753,25 from the day of the judgement until full compliance is reached.

The Commission is also urging Slovenia to ensure that urban waste water is adequately collected and treated, saying that 11 agglomerations in Slovenia are in breach of several provisions of the Urban Waste Water Directive. Slovenia also needs to specify requirements for collecting systems, discharges from treatment plants, industrial waste water and reference methods for monitoring and evaluation of results. However, in the EC’s view there has not been sufficient progress to remedy the situation - Slovenia now has two months to remedy the situation, otherwise, the case may be referred to the Court of Justice of the EU.

On the marine environment, the Commission has called on 9 Member States to protect their marine waters - Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom - to comply with the reporting obligations on the environmental status of marine waters under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

The countries concerned have failed to update their assessment of the environmental status of the waters concerned, the environmental impact of human activities, their determination of good environmental status and their environmental targets and to submit reports to the Commission by the required deadline of 15 October 2018.