Criticism of the Wastewater Directive: Water protection versus secure supply?

The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to reconsider the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWD). In a recent report on the Water Resilience Strategy, the Parliament calls for a new impact assessment. The current version endangers the security of supply of important medicines – this aspect has not been sufficiently addressed, critics argue.

The new concerns have been well received by manufacturers' associations, who had been sharply critical of the EU plans from the outset. The new directive introduces a fourth treatment stage to remove micropollutants and, for the first time, obliges certain sectors to bear the costs according to the polluter pays principle. Manufacturers of human pharmaceuticals and cosmetics will be required to cover at least 80 percent of the costs of constructing the fourth treatment stage.

The associations felt constrained by this regulation and warned of drug shortages and a weakening of Germany as a manufacturing location. Pharma Deutschland welcomed the new developments. Dorothee Brakmann, Managing Director of Pharma Deutschland, stated that the EU Commission is "urgently called upon to accept Parliament's initiative and promptly advance the revision of the impact assessment and extended producer responsibility."

Pro-Generika Managing Director Bork Bretthauer agreed: "The Urban Wastewater Directive must not be implemented in this form. Because it will lead to a tsunami of bottlenecks." The environmental policy goal of clean water must not be implemented at the expense of security of supply. This would undermine the Commission's goal of creating a more stable supply of medicines.

The planned requirement for manufacturers to cover most of the costs of a fourth treatment stage in wastewater treatment plants fails to take into account that pharmaceutical residues enter wastewater primarily through patient excretions. The estimated annual costs of around one billion euros would be borne primarily by generic drug manufacturers.

Bretthauer emphasized: "A new impact assessment is now needed in a timely manner that takes both goals – clean water and secure supply – into account."