EU consultation on drinking water quality launched

The European Commission has launched a consultation on the quality and price of drinking water, and its results will be used as input to decide if and where the EU Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC might need improvement.

The aim is to get a better understanding of stakeholders views on the need and the possible range of actions to improve the supply with high quality drinking water.

The consultation will run 15 September 2014.

As a background to the consultation, the Commission published a Synthesis Report on the Quality of Drinking Water on June 16, 2014, some of the conclusions are:

• The supply of high-quality water, in particular in remote and rural areas, should be improved.
• New scientific information about chemical and other parameters in relation to the drinking water parameter list should be considered in line with the ongoing revision of the WHO drinking-water guidelines, including emerging pollutants.
• Implementation timescales and derogation mechanisms of the directive are out of date and would benefit from a general update and overhaul.