The challenge of implementing European Union environmental law in the new member states: The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive in the Czech Republic and Poland

Abstract

This article examines the problematic implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) in the Czech Republic and Poland from the perspective of the scholarly debate on European Union (EU) and post-accession compliance, focusing on the competing ‘goodness of fit’ and administrative-legal approaches to explaining variations in compliance with EU rules. It finds that administrative shortcomings of various kinds are a major reason for implementation problems in both countries, and that problems have also stemmed from the multilevel nature of the implementation process, which places a heavy administrative and financial burden on municipalities, and requires cooperation between national and local government authorities. In the Czech case, however, the ‘misfit’ between EU standards and contracting and regulatory practices in the Czech water sector has also undermined UWWTD compliance, through its negative impact on the country's ability to access EU funding.