Now, putting aside the most problematic aspects essentially linked to the issue
of the involvement of the public sector in environmental LPUs, the recovery of
the “environmental” costs of water services is, in fact, an example of tangible
application of the “polluter pays principle”, a principle that informs the entire
EU environmental policy. One first official definition of the PPP was
formulated by the OECD in 19721. Such definition has since undergone a
conceptual evolution that has ranged from the idea of eliminating the aids
meant to cover pollution costs, to a “broad” definition (extended PPP) of full
internalization of the environmental costs that tends to charge on the polluter
all those costs associated to the negative environmental impacts produced by
economically important activities, including compensation for environmental
damage and use of market tools, environmental taxes and tradeable permits
included. The programmatic and non-binding document adopted by the OECD
entitled “Recommendation of the Council on Water Resource Management
Policies: Integration, Demand, Management and Ground Water Protection -
C(89)12/FINAL” is of fundamental importance in the field of water resources.
Under the principle contained in this document, those who use a natural
resource have to bear the full costs of their exploitation including the costs
linked to the impoverishment of the resource in question.
The 1992 Rio de Janeiro Declaration on Environment, and Development and
the Agenda 21 adopted there, have substantially codified the principles worked
out by the OECD in terms of the application of the “polluter pays principle” 2
supplementing this latter with the “user pays principle”. 3
In its Principle Declaration, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), that
was held in 2002 in Johannesburg, reasserted the commitment to complying with the Rio de
1OECD - Recommendation of the OECD Council “Guiding principle concerning
international economic aspects of environmental policies”.
2 Principle 16 reads as follows: “National authorities should endeavour to promote the
internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments, taking into account
the approach that the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution, with due regard
to the public interest and without distorting international trade and investment”.
3 The application of the “polluter pays principles” to the field of water resources is foreseen
under Section 18 of Agenda 21 where reference is made to the more recent notion of the user
pays principle, that relies on he idea of putting in place not only the reform of the tax system
and of the system of business incentives, but also a genuine revolution of the present
production-consumption models and of the tariff systems adopted by public utilities (transport,
water resources).
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