European Parliament
Linda McAvan (PSE ). –
Mr President, Labour MEPs abstained on the final vote on the floods directive. It is a pity that the directive does not focus on the rivers in Europe where the main problem lies: cross-border rivers.
I am afraid that the Commission will now be flooded with maps of domestic rivers all over Europe. The main area in which the EU can make a difference is trans-border rivers, where joint management by Member States is extremely important. We wanted to have an exemption for all domestic river basins. That would have made more sense. I hope, therefore, that when the Commission comes back to look at the details it will have a very light-touch regime for those countries that do not have trans-border rivers.

