EU Floods Directive
The European Directive on the Assessment and Management of Flood Risks (2007/60/EC of 23 October 2007) (the Floods Directive) is designed to help Member States prevent and limit floods and their damaging effects on human health, the environment, infrastructure and property. The Floods Directive came into force on 26 November, 2007 and Member States have 2 years in which to transpose the Directive into domestic law.
Latest News
The Floods Directive was published in the Official Journal on 6 November.
Defra is co-ordinating the transposition of the Directive into UK law and is ultimately responsible for its timely and compliant implementation. A UK Floods Directive liaison group has been set up to monitor progress against the project timetable which, for England, is set out below.
Project timetable |
|
Project initiation |
August 2007 |
Determine approach, consider existing provisions and data |
|
Develop options for capturing new requirements |
|
Approve consultation package (draft regulations, consultation document and impact assessment) |
February 2009 |
Consultation (12 weeks) |
February 2009 |
Review outcome, draft revised instructions to lawyers |
May 2009 |
Legal process drafting checks (2 months) |
July 2009 |
Lay in Parliament |
|
Brought into force |
September 2009 |
In parallel, a Technical Working Group is considering detailed issues arising from the Floods Directive to determine how its requirements might change existing mapping and management of flood risk.
The transposition will be subject to a full public consultation, which is expected to take place during early 2009.
In essence the Floods Directive requires member states to prepare the following assessments for the European Commission:
- preliminary flood risk assessments to identify areas that are at potentially significant flood risk, by 20 December 2011;
- flood hazard maps (showing the likelihood and flow of the potential flooding) and flood risk maps (showing the impact), by 20 December 2013;
- flood risk management plans (showing measures to decrease the likelihood or impact of flooding), by 22 December 2015; and
- updates every 6 years thereafter that take into account the impact of climate change.
The assessment process must be aligned with the environmental objectives of the Water Framework Directive and carried out in consultation with stakeholders.
Background
Following devastating floods in several parts of Europe in recent years, EU environment ministers agreed in October 2004 that there was a need for greater European co-ordination on flood risk management. The European Commission produced a Floods Action Programme which included the proposal for an EU Directive on the Assessment and Management of Floods.
Following a public consultation, to which the Government submitted a response, the European Commission published a draft Directive on the assessment and management of floods on 20 January 2006. The results of the consultation, full text of the proposal, the draft Directive, European Commission's Explanatory Memorandum and Impact Assessment are available on the European Commission’s website.
The Government submitted a UK Explanatory Memorandum to Parliament in February 2006 which provided an initial assessment of the implications of the proposed Directive for the UK. A partial Regulatory Impact Assessment based on the draft Directive was prepared and submitted under a Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum in June 2006.
Following negotiations on the first reading, EU Environment Ministers reached a unanimous political agreement on the text of the Directive at the meeting of the Environment Council on 27 June 2006. Following legal and linguistic checks, this was formally agreed as the Council’s Common Position on 18 October 2006.
Under the co-decision procedure (used for most environment legislation), the European Parliament has an equal say in the final text. The second reading in the European Parliament began in January 2007. The lead committee in the European Parliament on this Directive is the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Following discussion, it adopted 42 amendments to the Common Position at its meeting on 27 February 2007.
At the second reading, on 25 April 2007, the final package of 27 compromise amendments was approved by the European Parliament.
On 18 September 2007 the Council finally adopted the Floods Directive. It was published in the Official Journal on 6 November and came into force on 26 November, 2007.From that date, we have two years in which to transpose the Floods Directive – that is, bring it into legal effect in the UK.
Page last
modified: 17 June 2008
Page published: 20 February 2006