European Parliament 2019-2024 Committee on Petitions 8.4.2020 NOTICE TO MEMBERS Subject: Petition No 0750/2019 by E.S. (Spanish), on behalf of the Asociacion Ciudadana para la defensa de Torremolinos, on the problems of the Guadalhorce water treatment plant in Malaga, Spain 1. Summary of petition The petitioner complains about the obsolescence and malfunctioning of the Guadalhorce water treatment plant in Malaga, which is clearly insufficient to purify the water from Alhaurin de la Torre, Campanillas, Churiana, Puerto de la Torre and Torremolinos. The petitioner calls for urgent intervention by the Parliament to address the public health problems affecting the province of Malaga and seriously affecting the quality of the water in the Mediterranean Sea. 2. Admissibility Declared admissible on 13 December 2019. Information requested from Commission under Rule 227(6). 3. Commission reply, received on 8 April 2020 The treatment plant ‘Guadalhorce’ serves the urban agglomeration of ‘Málaga West’1, and it has a treatment capacity for approximately 1,300,000 of population. According to the latest Commission Implementation Report2, based on the data submitted by the Member States’ authorities, this plant is not working at full capacity, treating a polluting load of approximately 730,000 of population, which indicates that it would still have the capacity to treat more waste water. In addition, the analytical results of the treated effluent indicate compliance with the 1 Large urban agglomerations often include several towns and villages. 2 Member States’ data have already been processed and the corresponding results are ready and final. The new report, including results and additional information, will be published towards the summer 2020. CM\1202824EN.docx PE650.421v01-00 EN United in diversityEN relevant parameters of Council Directive 91/271/EEC3. This plant also applies phosphorus and nitrogen removal and disinfection, which goes beyond the obligations of the discharge area. Based on this information, the Commission concludes that the treatment plant “Guadalhorce”, fulfils the waste water treatment requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD). It is also indicated in the petition that another large treatment plant named ‘Málaga Norte’ is forecasted to be functioning in one or two years, and it would cover a large number of municipalities near the city of Málaga. The Commission considers this to be a positive step because it might help improve the waste water management in this area. Additionally, in the judgment of 25 July 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union decided4, at the Commission’s request, to impose financial penalties on Spain for its delay in complying with its collection and treatment obligations (in the UWWTD) in 17 Spanish agglomerations. The penalty amounted to a lump sum of EUR 12 million, and penalty payments of EUR 10,950,000 every 6 months. There are currently three agglomerations from the province of Málaga: Nerja, Coín and Alhaurín el Grande that remain in non-compliance, and therefore still contributing proportionally to the 6 month periodic penalty payment. The Spanish authorities have informed the Commission in the last Implementation Report about another 13 coastal agglomerations in the province of Málaga, which show compliance with their respective waste water collection and treatment obligations. In the additional information received on behalf of the petitioner on 25 February 2020, the petitioner iterates the problems referred to above, with special focus on the absence of treatment plants serving ‘Costa del Sol’. As a consequence of this, the bathing waters in the area would frequently become “unfit for bathing”. Conclusion According to the information available in the last Implementation Report, there are no problems in the functioning of the treatment plant named ‘Guadalhorce’, which has enough capacity to tackle a large number of the population from the area where it is located. 3 Council Directive of 21 May 1991 concerning urban waste-water treatment (UWWTD), OJ L 135, 30.5.1991. 4 Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber) of 25 July 2018 in Case C-205/17, concerning an action for failure to fulfil obligations under Article 260 (2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), brought on 20 April 2017. PE650.421v01-00 2/2 CM\1202824EN.docx EN.