Map shows all active water infringement procedures

The new Environmental Implementation Review shows all the shortcomings in the implementation of environmental laws, including the EU water directives. The European Commission is now working on 313 infringement procedures against Member States. About 20% of these cases (64) are against Member States that do not comply with EU water directives, like the Drinking Water Directive (DWD), the Floods Directive, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) and the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

The Environmental Implementation Review identifies common trends at EU level, based on the individual country reports of the 27 EU Member States.  The review includes a wide range of information about how well Member States are protecting the quality of the air citizens breathe and the water they drink. Furthermore, the review provides concrete priority actions for improvement in each Member State. ‘Member States need to make better use of available EU funds to collect and treat urban wastewater’, stated the European Commission in a Press Release. The review estimates the costs of non-implementation of EU environmental laws due to air and water pollution, nature degradation at €180 billion per year for the EU.

Infringement procedures in the field of water

In total, the European Commission has initiated 524 infringement procedures against Member States for failing to comply with EU water laws. Most of the active infringement procedures in the field of water (nearly 72% of 64 procedures) are due to the bad application of European water directives. Incorrect transposition of water directives accounts for approximately 23% of the cases and failure to communicate the transposition measures led to infringement procedures in more than 4% of the cases.  

Interactive map of environmental infringements

The European Commission has published an interactive map on environmental infringements by Member State and topic. It is possible to select a Member State and see how it is performing as well as when and why infringement procedures were started. The interactive map also shows how many times a Member State was sent to the European Court of Justice (Article 260 cases). The Member State Spain has the dubious honour of  leading in 2025 with nine active water procedures, followed by Italy, Greece and Portugal.

_{Water infringement procedures divided by Member State. Source: Environmental Infringements Interactive Map}