3           STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF NITRATES DIRECTIVE IN EXISTING EU MEMBER STATES

 The summary of strategies of the implementation of Nitrates Directive in the Member States is based on the Report of the Commission to the Council and European Parliament “Measures taken pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources”.

3.1         Designation of nitrate vulnerable zones

The Nitrates Directive provides two options for designation within Article 3: to designate separate zones or announce the whole national territory as vulnerable to nitrate pollution. Existing EU Member States have adopted different strategies for designation of the vulnerable zones: six countries declared the whole country as vulnerable, and only Ireland decided not to designate any nitrate vulnerable zones (see Table 3.1). However, Irish authorities have started a new monitoring programme for the purposes of Nitrate Directive and it is possible that during the next revisions some nitrate vulnerable zones will be designated.

Table 3.1        Implementation of the Nitrates Directive in existing EU Member States. Approach for designation of Nitrate Vulnerable zones:

It should be noted that existing EU Member States located in the catchment area of the Baltic Sea, namely Finland, Denmark, and Germany have designated the whole national territory as vulnerable except Sweden where only the coastal area of the Baltic Sea was designated as a vulnerable zone.

The decision of the Latvian Government regarding nitrate vulnerable zones has some implications for Lithuania, as the Nitrate Directive requires the designation of vulnerable zones in the territories that drain into waters designated as vulnerable zones by another Member State. The final decision regarding nitrate vulnerable zones has not yet been adopted. Below we present some considerations developed by the Latvian Nitrates Project team regarding approach for designation:

“Designating the whole Latvian territory as a vulnerable zone is from an environmental point of view the optimum way of implementing the nitrate directive as it will secure the highest degree of precaution.

The designation of specific vulnerable zones may be acceptable from an environmental point of view. The crucial point is how the already existing and future agricultural activities outside the vulnerable zones will influence the concentration of nitrate in the groundwater. On the basis of existing data (see annex I of this note) it has to be considered whether the admissible concentration of 50 mg NO3/l in groundwater is likely to be exceeded in the regions and if the objective of pollution prevention can be met without mandatory restrictions.”

 3.2         Action programmes

Article 5 of the Nitrate Directive requires the establishment of action programmes in respect of designated vulnerable zones. Austria, Germany, France, and Luxembourg have set limits for application of manure in kg N/ha/yr. Denmark and Sweden have opted to use livestock units corresponding to these amounts.  The action programme adopted by Denmark consists of the following main elements:

1.      Provisions for the abatement of discharges from farm waste (mandatory standards for manure storage facilities, farmyards, milking parlours and effluent outlets);

2.      Provisions for the land application of manure (time periods when application of manure should not occur, time periods within which the manure should be ploughed into the soil)

3.      Mandatory crop rotation, fertiliser planning and fertiliser account 

4.      Storage capacity for manure

In Germany measures for the action programmes are established in the Fertiliser Order. These measures include periods when application of fertiliser is prohibited (when not required by plants), prescribes maximum limit of application of manure per hectare, specifies that direct inputs or run-off of fertilisers to surface waters should be avoided during land application and lays down procedures for land application. Fertiliser Order also provides for keeping of records on nutrient supply and removal with the harvested products thus enabling to establish nutrient balance.

Sweden was the only country to provide an estimation of when the measures contains in the action programmes would be likely to have an effect. They estimated that 50% reduction goal in the antropogenic nitrogen load in marine waters should be achieved by 2005.

3.3         Monitoring

Article 5 of the Nitrates Directive requires two types of monitoring. The first requirement is to monitor the effectiveness of the action programmes (Article 5.6). Different schemes were put in place to implement this requirement. These schemes are summarised in table 3.2.

Table 3.2        Methods applied by the EU Member States for monitoring of the effectiveness of the action programmes.

Member States that designate the whole national territory as vulnerable are also required to monitor the nitrate content of waters at selected measuring points to make it possible to assess extent of water pollution by nitrates from the agricultural sources. Information on extent of monitoring programmes is presented in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3           Extent of monitoring programmes in Member states that designated the whole national territory as vulnerable to nitrate pollution

3.4          Problems faced in EU Member States when implementing the Nitrates Directive

Only two out of fifteen existing EU Member States, namely Denmark and Sweden, have not received any notice from the Commission on failure to implement the Nitrates Directive. The infringement actions taken by the Commission against the EU Member States on failure to implement Nitrates Directive are summarised in Table 3.4 below.

Table 3.4           Status of Nitrates directive infringement actions. Stage of most advanced action.

 Source: publications by Environmental Data Services ENDS 

Summary. The information on implementation of the Nitrates Directive indicates that there is no uniformity in the EU Member States in the implementation of the Nitrates Directive. Nitrates Directive infringement actions taken by the Commission against the Member States indicate that the majority of the States face problems with implementation of the Nitrates Directive, in particular with development of the action programmes in the nitrate vulnerable zones.