On 11 February, the European Commission published its Work Programme for 2025. It outlines the EU’s main initiatives and legislative priorities for the coming year. Water, industry, and sustainability play a prominent role in the plans.
The Water Resilience Strategy is mentioned as an essential theme. To strengthen this, the Commission wants to address water issues in an integrated way, using a source-to-sea approach. This approach takes into account the different challenges faced by regions. Vewin welcomes the fact that, given Europe’s water challenges, significant regional differences that can exist both between and within Member States are taken into account.
The Water Resilience Strategy offers the opportunity, with the Water Framework Directive as a basis, to better align European legislation on water and the environment with legislation covering activities that put pressure on water quality or availability. Additional efforts on water resilience can provide extra impetus to achieve the WFD objectives, for example through additional measures to combat pollution. Vewin sees the control at source and the “polluter pays” principles as key foundations in this respect.
Clean Industrial Deal
A prominent part of the Work Programme is the Clean Industrial Deal, aimed at strengthening Europe’s competitiveness while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon and circular economy. Part of this is a revision of REACH, in the form of a “New Chemicals Industry Package.” This package aims to simplify the registration, evaluation, and approval of chemical substances and provide clarity on the EU’s approach to PFAS.
Vewin is positive about the European Commission’s decision to take up the revision of REACH. For substances classified under REACH as substances of very high concern (SVHC), (industrial) emissions to water must be reduced. In this way, REACH contributes to achieving the Dutch WFD objectives and to improving the quality of Dutch drinking water sources. Vewin also advocates for the broadest and fastest possible implementation of the European restriction proposal on PFAS.
Ongoing legislative priorities
The Work Programme also mentions ongoing legislative initiatives, including the Soil Monitoring Directive and the revision of the Priority Substances List. The Soil Monitoring Directive should make soil health monitoring mandatory and counteract soil pollution. For the drinking water sector, healthy soil is of crucial importance. Approximately 60% of Dutch drinking water comes from groundwater, and healthy soil has a direct link with groundwater.
In the revision of the Priority Substances List, decisions will be made on which new and existing substances should be regulated to protect surface and groundwater. Both processes are currently in the trilogue phase. In this phase, representatives of the Council Presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission meet to explore whether agreement between the three institutions can be reached.
Read the full Work Programme of the European Commission