The European Union has been urging Germany for more than thirty years to fully implement the Nitrate Directive to limit nitrate pollution of groundwater and drinking water. Despite multiple warnings and legal action, Germany continues to lag behind in enforcing these EU rules.
The pressure on Germany to finally fully comply with the guidelines is increasing, but the German states blocked this again last week.
Germany has not complied with European rules against nitrate pollution of ground and drinking water for more than thirty years. The new German four-year report on nitrate pollution in German surface waters shows that in more than a quarter of the measurements the pollution is still above the EU standards.
The European Commission has taken legal action against Germany several times for non-compliance with the EU nitrate directive. This directive, introduced in 1991, requires EU countries to take measures to limit nitrate pollution from agricultural sources.
However, Germany has once again failed to fully implement this directive. This is partly because the legal powers are partly regional powers, while Brussels can only make agreements with national governments (and not with federated states and regional authorities).
Last week, a majority of the sixteen states rejected a new fertilizer law that had already been accepted by the national parliament in Berlin. Due to the resistance of the states, a time-consuming consultation and recovery process must now be initiated between the government and the states.
There is a good chance that the European Commission will not be satisfied with this and will still collect the previously imposed fines worth millions. Berlin has been able to stop this until now because of the promise that stricter rules will be introduced in a new manure law. But the German states do not (yet?) want to cooperate with stricter laws.
Germany still has to deal with high nitrate concentrations, especially in areas with intensive livestock farming and agriculture. The fertilization of agricultural land with natural manure and artificial fertilizer leads to a surplus of nitrate, which then ends up in the groundwater.
Environmental organizations and water authorities are calling for stricter measures and effective enforcement of existing rules. They emphasize that pollution is not only an environmental problem, but also a threat to public health.