Litigation Politics: The French Government, the European Commission, and the Case of Nitrate Contamination in Brittany

• In Event: Risk Government: Putting Industries Back in the Analysis of Science-based Regulatory Tools - II

Abstract

In many parts of the world, lakes, rivers, groundwater or coastal waters are contaminated with nitrates. Such contamination, which involves risks to both health and the environment, is mainly due to agriculture and is most prevalent in regions of intensive livestock farming and field crops. In Europe, several directives have been adopted to lay down rules to prevent and reduce such contaminations since 1975. However, their implementation has encountered major difficulties, which have led to numerous litigations between the States and the European Commission. In this communication, I will focus more specifically on one of these disputes: the one between the French Government and the European Commission concerning excessive nitrate rates in the rivers of Brittany from 1992 to 2010. On the basis of an investigation based on archives and interviews with the parties concerned, I describe how these disputes were investigated, both by the French authorities and by the European Commission, and how they were finally resolved. This leads me to show that for the French authorities, the issue was not mainly the reduction of nitrate contamination, but the necessity to convince the European Commission of their apparent compliance with Community law. This will lead me to examine the origins of this pragmatic approach towards European standards and its consequences in their implementation.

Author

• Marc-Olivier Déplaude, French National Institute for Agricultural research