BRUSSELS (Reuters) – French European lawmakers are urging the European Union’s executive to take measures to end British discharges of raw sewage into shared waters, part of what they say is an unacceptable lowering of environmental standards since Brexit.
The three leading French members of the European Parliament said in a letter to EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius dated Wednesday that they feared harm to marine biodiversity and activities of the fish and shellfish sector.
The lawmakers, fishing committee chief Pierre Karleskind, committee member Stephanie Yon-Courtin, who is also a member of the Normandy regional council, and former French minister Nathalie Loiseau referred to media reports last week about large-scale pumping of sewage into Britain’s seas.
“We cannot let the environment, the economic activity of our fishermen and the health of citizens be seriously endangered by the repeated negligence of the United Kingdom in the management of its wastewater,” Yon-Courtin said in a press release.
Britain, the lawmakers said, was no longer subject to EU environmental rules after leaving the bloc, and had chosen to cut its water quality standards despite being a signatory to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which contains provisions on environmental protection.
“This is unacceptable,” they wrote. “We ask the Commission to use all political and legal means in its possession to end the situation.”
British water treatment facilities temporarily discharge raw sewage into seas and rivers if they are inundated by heavy rainfall and risk flooding. Environmental campaigners say such discharges are becoming more common.
England and Wales regulator Ofwat and the British government’s Environment Agency have launched investigations over the past year into several water companies that admitted they might be making unpermitted sewage discharges.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Alex Richardson)
