Leading by example

Helmut Blöch, Deputy Head of the Water Unit of the Directorate General for the Environment of the European Commission and Head of the EU Delegation to the ICPDR.

In its continuing series, Danube Watch presents portraits of the leaders whose passion and commitment actively steer ICPDR processes and help determine the future of the basin.

Danube Watch: With all 13 Danube countries working together, why is the EU a contracting party to the Danube River Protection Convention?

Blöch: Firstly, because the EU bears a lot of legislative responsibility on water protection. There’s a range of EU legislation – the Water Framework Directive, the future floods directive, directives on wastewater treatment – and major elements to achieve good quality of the Danube River will be by implementing EU legislation. Therefore in formal terms there is a legal obligation for the EU to be a contracting party to the Danube Convention.

However, from a more political point of view, the European Commission also sees the Danube cooperation as one of the examples of cooperation across boundaries of the existing, and the future, enlarged European Union and serves as an example for other river basins in Europe but probably across the world as well.

This is why we took on the presidency in 2004 with our Director-General, Catherine Day, as president, and why we agreed to chair the River Basin Management Expert Group – one of the key working groups of the ICPDR.

Danube Watch: How is the approach of EU water management influencing other countries?

Blöch: The process within the ICPDR has led to all countries committing themselves at ministerial level to the principles and objectives of integrated and sustainable water resources management as set out in the Water Framework Directive. The Danube Declaration of December 2004 is a further political signal to that end and unites all Danube countries. And we look at the achievements; the record is remarkable, e.g. – developing the Danube Basin Analysis defining the key pressures and impacts on our surface waters and groundwater in line with the Water Framework Directive, elaborating a Danube-wide Flood Action Plan, or making the annual Danube Day an event throughout the basin, with participation from school classes to ministers.

This is why these ministers agreed together: they will follow the Water Framework Directive regardless of whether they are already legally bound by it, true for many of the countries in the Danube Basin, or whether they will be bound by it, as for Romania and Bulgaria joining in a month’s time, or for Croatia as a candidate country joining the EU sometime this decade. Adopting the EU Water Framework Directive is a political decision, but a political decision based on practical and constructive experience of both the Water Framework Directive itself but also the way it is implemented within the ICPDR.

Danube Watch: And what influence and experience can the Danube countries share with the Black Sea countries?

Blöch: Given the geography and hydrology, the Danube Basin is inextricably linked to the Black Sea. All efforts taken within the Danube Basin have a positive impact on the Black Sea and therefore solving the problems of the Black Sea will not be possible without addressing the problems in the Danube Basin.

Danube Watch: With its DABLAS (DAnube BLAck Sea) Initiative
the European Commission is underlining the need for an even enlarged regional cooperation. Why is the EU so interested
in this part of the world?

Blöch: The European Union is not currently a member of the Black Sea Convention, because when the Black Sea Convention was drafted, signed and ratified, there were no EU territories bordering the Black Sea. However, this will change from January 2007 with Romania and Bulgaria joining the European Union and we will see how a constructive expansion of the Black Sea Convention and Commission that includes the EU can be worked out. And as a way towards the future objective of a full involvement of the European Union into water protection of Black Sea, the DABLAS initiative was created in order to link the two processes and also to ensure the establishment of priorities – for instance the prioritisation of projects for funding.

Danube Watch: How can other continents take advantage of the lessons learnt by the Danube Basin?

Blöch: The ICPDR has provided a showcase example that the principles of coordinated river basin management can work even in difficult situations within very large river basins and many with countries involved. If it can work in complicated basins like the Danube, then it can work for other basins.

In the past two years there has been considerable interest in the Danube region and the work of the ICPDR. As an example, China has organised visits by high level experts from the Chinese Environment administration to the ICPDR and to the European Commission. So there is considerable interest in how mechanisms, theory and practice of coordinated river basin management within shared river basins work.

The fact that the Chinese delegation has visited the ICPDR is a clear sign: yes, work in the Danube Basin is not only seen and observed, but appreciated far beyond the borders of Europe.

Danube Watch: Thank you very much, Mr Blöch.

Kirstie Shepherd is a freelance journalist living in Vienna and has called the Danube River Basin home since 2000.