French elected officials are questioning the United Kingdom. The president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand, alerted the government on Friday August 26 to the discharge of untreated British wastewater into the Channel and the North Sea.
“The images, relayed by numerous international media, which show untreated sewage pouring in abundance into the English Channel and the North Sea from the beaches of the United Kingdom have sparked (…) great concern because of the pollution emanating from these discharges »said Xavier Bertrand in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville.
” Ecological disaster “
If this situation “already denounced by many associations is not new, it seems to have worsened since Brexit, insofar as the United Kingdom has exempted itself from European regulations in environmental matters”he added. “A British statutory standard (…) exempts water companies from the obligation to treat wastewater before discharging it into the sea”underlined the president of the region.
This practice is “a real ecological disaster”he said, wishing that the French government would ask the United Kingdom “compliance with the European Union’s environmental requirements for the discharge of untreated wastewater”.
Three French MEPs have already called on the European Commission to act on the subject. “We cannot accept that the United Kingdom sits on its environmental commitments made at the time of Brexit and calls into question the efforts that have been made by Europeans over the past twenty years”wrote one of the MEPs, Pierre Karleskind, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries.
The European Commission said on Thursday that it would respond soon. “We rely on the UK to honor all its legal obligations (…) in order to prevent any health and environmental damage”tweeted Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius on Friday.