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In December 2011 published the 6^th report on implementation of the UWWT Directive. The report covers the implementation of the Directive up to the reference year 2007/2008. Below is listed a summary of the key messages from the implementation report.

For the reference year 2007/2008, Member States reported 22,626 agglomerations (72% in EU-15 and 28% in EU-12) larger than 2,000 person equivalents (p.e.), generating a total pollution load of around 550 million p.e.

A breakdown taking into account the different size ranges shows that:

• 2% of the agglomerations are larger than 150,000 p.e. (i.e. 586 big cities/big discharges), generating 43% of the pollution load (equivalent to around 248 million p.e.).
• 32% of the agglomerations range between 10,000 and 150,000 p.e., generating 45% of the pollution load.
• 66% of agglomerations range between 2,000 and 10,000 p.e., generating 12% of the pollution load.

Waste water collecting systems were in place for 99% of the total polluting load of EU-15 and for 65% of the total generated load of EU-12. Most EU-15 Member States had largely implemented this provision except for Italy and Greece which have 93% and 87% of generated load collected in collecting systems, respectively.

Secondary treatment was in place for 96% of the load for EU-15 and for 48% of the load for EU-12. As the infrastructure in place cannot always achieve quality standards in line with the Directive's requirements (possible reasons: inadequate capacity, performance or design etc.), 89% of the total generated load for EU-15 and 39% of the total generated load for EU-12 were reported to work adequately showing compliant monitoring results for secondary and more stringent treatment respectively.

More stringent treatment was in place for 89% of the load for EU-15 and for 27% of the generated load for EU-12. As the infrastructure in place cannot always achieve quality standards in line with the Directive's requirements (same reasons as for secondary treatment), 79% of the total generated load for EU-15 and 24% of the total generated load for EU-12 were reported to work adequately.

Figure 7.x: Average share of generated load collected in collecting systems, treated by secondary treatment and more stringent treatment for EU-15 (left) and EU-12 (right)

EU-15 refers to Member States which joined the EU before the 2004 enlargement: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and United Kingdom (due to missing/late reporting UK is not included).

EU-12 refers to Member States who acceded to the EU in 2004 and 2007 enlargements: Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Note:

For 15 Member States (hereinafter referred to as EU-15) all deadlines in the Directive have expired. Therefore proper waste water collection and treatment has to be in place for all agglomerations within the scope of the Directive.

For the other EU Member States, (hereinafter referred to as EU-12), transitional periods were granted by their Accession Treaties. None of these transitional periods exceed the year 2015 except for some small agglomerations (less than 10,000 p.e.) in Romania, which have to comply by the end of 2018.