ECPA welcomes Commission’s proposal for a daughter Directive amending the Water Framework Directive

18 July 2006 - The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) today broadly welcomed the Commission's proposal for a daughter Directive that amends the existing Water Framework Directive. More specifically, this proposed Directive sets risk-based Environmental Quality Standards for surface water and identifies priority hazardous substances from those currently under review.

ECPA applauds the Commission's approach in carrying out a detailed consultation with all stakeholders in advance of preparing this proposal. The crop protection industry has implemented various stewardship initiatives to reduce environmental exposure, and ECPA believes that only through the combined efforts of all stakeholders can the presence of crop protection products in water be efficiently minimised.

ECPA's Senior Manager for Environment & Food Policy, Stuart Rutherford, commented: "This proposal should lead to an effective legislative framework to ensure sustainable approaches to surface water quality management in the EU. It will bring all stakeholders one step closer to EU waters achieving good status by 2015 as laid out in the Water Framework Directive."

ECPA actively encourages farmers to adopt best agricultural practices to protect ground and surface water. ECPA is currently running TOPPS (Train the Operators to Prevent Pollution from Point Sources), a new jointly funded initiative of the crop protection industry and the European Commission LIFE instrument to prevent pollution of water by crop protection products. TOPPS covers 15 countries in the EU, working with a network of partners to develop best practices and build a training and communication network. (Visit the TOPPS website at: http://www.topps-life.org/.)

ECPA has also recently launched Sense & Sustainability, a pan-European campaign to promote the sustainable use of plant protection products. To read more about the campaign please visit: www.ecpa.be/Sense+Sustainability.