Relevance and application of the EU Water Directive in terms of Spain's National Hydrological Plan

The National Hydrological Plan Act was passed after the publishing of Community Directive 2000/60/EC. Officially, the Act has taken the existence of the Directive into account, but its handling of the regulation of the Ebro transfer ignores fundamental issues of the Directive, in that it does not envisage the principle of cost recovery, does not clearly determine the uses to which the transferred waters will be put, and it is not orientated towards sustainable development. Furthermore, Spanish public contract law is not in line with Community Law, and this may have repercussions in the practical aspect of possible European subsidies for carrying out the transfer.