Sharing freshwater across the border

Abstract

Currently cross-border cooperation regarding the water system in the Belgian-Dutch area is very fragmented. The current climatic evolution is one of the main incentives for the Belgian-Dutch attempt to move from a fragmented cooperation landscape in water management to a more coordinated cross-border cooperation. Public actors on both sides of the border want to explore the possibility to cooperate under the umbrella of an overarching cooperation structure and/or to develop an overarching legal framework for cross-border cooperation with regard to water management within this region. From a legal perspective, such a coordinated cross-border coordination is a rather complex given that requires some clarifications. In this regard, the applicant formulated the legal challenges with regard to water management across the Belgian-Dutch border as follows: “Not only is there a need for a cross-border agreement framework concerning the sharing of freshwater, but there are also no cross-border agreements regarding capture bans and so forth. This leads to situations where a farmer on Flemish territory is no longer allowed to capture water in dry periods, while his colleague on Dutch soil 500 meters away does have the possibility to extract water.” This report identifies a number of tools that can facilitate the envisaged structural cooperation and safeguard it as much as possible from legal ambiguities. The first part of the report identifies the possible legal structures for cross-border cooperation, being a cooperation based on an international agreement, a “European Grouping on Territorial Cooperation” and a “Benelux Groepering voor Territoriale Samenwerking”. The second part provides tools to tackle legal issues that might arise during the execution phase of the cross-border cooperation, being a evolutionary approach of the mentioned bilateral agreements on the one hand and a tool to find a solution for conflicting rules of national law.