Going to the beach and enjoying a good swim without the risk of contaminated water seems like the most natural thing in the world to us, but a few years ago it was unthinkable. On the beaches of the Llobregat delta, for example, swimming was prohibited because the water from this river, one of the most polluted in Europe along with the Anoia, reached them. But all this changed thanks to a European Commission regulation, the Water Framework Directive, which since 2000 has recognized the importance of rivers for the sea, as a vital source of nutrients for marine life and sediments for the coast.Now this directive is at risk. The same European Commission that promoted it has raised a reform that can weaken it. The its proposal implies increasing the possibilities that projects considered "strategic" can prevail over current environmental legislation. Currently, member states can already request exceptions to compliance with certain obligations of the directive, but only in very specific and justified circumstances. The reform aims to expand this margin of exception and adapt it to the new strategic priorities of the European Union. This could facilitate the authorization of projects linked to the extraction of critical raw materials (mainly for the production of various renewable energies) or infrastructures related to defence and security. These changes pose a huge contradiction with the current situation, given that, precisely now, measures have been approved to reduce polluting substances such as PFAS and microplastics in water, and we are also paying daily fines to the European Commission itself for not complying with the required levels of sanitation and water saving.If this reform is approved, there is a very clear risk: moving from a directive model based on the protection of aquatic ecosystems to a model that normalizes their degradation. And this would have direct consequences not only for rivers and aquifers, but also for the health of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, and for people's daily lives.Therefore, this debate is more than a legal issue. It is about choosing what model of relationship we want to have with water. The Water Framework Directive introduced a paradigm shift: water is not managed solely with economic and political criteria, but rather places ecological criteria at the center in order to guarantee the health of aquatic ecosystems and prevent their degradation.
The proposal to revise the directive responds to the global context that demands strategic mineral resources for the energy transition and the creation of a European army. The possible impacts of this decision will not only be environmental but may directly affect us all: potash mining in the Llobregat basin, for example, has generated decades of pollution and persistent impacts, in addition to fueling the military industry of the Israeli army and determining an ecocide on the other side of the Mediterranean.Beyond this, weakening the Water Framework Directive will limit our capacity to adapt to climate change. It should be noted that what we want for Europe's waters and ecosystems, we also demand for the rest of the planet, as enshrined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; specifically, SDG7 concerning clean water and sanitation. In a context of increasingly recurrent droughts, preserving aquifers, rivers, and coastal ecosystems is not a mere environmentalist option, but a condition for survival. Faced with this deregulation proposal, it is very important to closely follow everything that is being debated in the final phase of the participatory process linked to the fourth cycle of implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Catalonia for the period 2028-2033. It is also necessary to make everyone's voice heard on the modification of the directive through participatory processes and denunciation campaigns such as the one proposed by Hands off Nature.
