Ireland may be joining with some other EU states in stubbornly resisting full charges for water use, but the Amsterdam Treaty could soon put an end to all that, the conference heard.
The Republic was strongly against the charges because of a political decision to abandon them, while the other countries were opposing them because their farming was heavily reliant on irrigation.
However, once the new EU treaty is fully ratified next year, the European Parliament will have an equal say on key pieces of legislation such as the new Water Policy Framework Directive, Dr Alexander Kopke of the environment directorate-general in the European Commission, said.
It's called "co-decision", and the Parliament was staunchly defending the need for full cost recovery of water supply, full application of "the polluter pays" principle and charges for domestic water use, as the Commission had advocated in the proposed directive, he said. The directive could be in place by the end of 1999.
While the Council of Ministers had succeeded in easing some of the directive's provisions, notably in the timescale for improvements to be made in water quality, the treaty meant the parliament's position would in some way have to be accommodated.
While there were no longer any legal requirements to have full cost recovery for water supply, the directive had detailed provisions on transparency. Member-states would have to calculate the full costs of water use, including environmental and resource factors, and evaluate how far down the road towards implementation of cost recovery they had gone. This could provide significant impetus towards having proper charges, said Dr Kopke. Sustainable management in terms of keeping water use to a minimum and recycling at a maximum were being routinely applied to the design of new buildings in the Netherlands, said Dr Paul van Eijk of Delft University and Haarlem municipal council. "Watersaving materials" were required to be used by law.
In most new dwellings, water meters, water-saving toilet units, taps with flow restrictors and water-saving shower heads were mandatory. Bathtubs were seldom provided in new houses, while the possibilities for using rainwater, known as "grey water", to flush toilets were being extensively evaluated.
