INTRODUCTION

The bottleneck analysis presented in Chapter II and the evaluation of two specific river basins in Chapters III and IV allow a more normative approach in the present chapter.

Chapter I has explained that the primary focus of this book is on the European legal framework for the governance of International River Basin Districts, from the viewpoint of water quantity management. Based on the data presented in Chapters I through to IV, stemming from the review of international, European and national legislation, jurisprudence and literature, Critical Success Factors (CSF) for transboundary river basin management have be identified. These constitute the groundwork for the specific recommendations which are geared to the EU legal framework in its capacity as facilitator of IRBD management and also to IRBDs as institutional mechanisms. The CSFs will be explained in section 1.1. The next step is to apply the lessons learned to International River Basin Districts, and the underlying EU legal framework. The recommendations associated with this application can be divided into two broad categories: addressing the EU primary law approach to water management and enhancing the cooperation in International River Basin Districts. The latter aspect can be further divided into the EU secondary law and the operationalisation at IRBD levels.

The goal of this book is to improve river basin management in International River Basin Districts, using water quantity as an example. To this extent, this chapter will address the primary EU-law dichotomy between water quantity and water quality, because this is a prerequisite for achieving integrated river basin management. In contrast, the chapter will not present an exhaustive set of recommendations for amendments to water quantity provisions in EU secondary law, because this goes beyond the scope of this book. The recommendations associated with EU secondary law focus on the manners in which the EU legal framework can further facilitate cooperation in and management of International River Basin Districts.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

EVALUATIVE COMPARISON

Before explaining the Critical Success Factors, it is relevant to recap the evaluation exercise and provide a schematic overview of the river basin management regimes analysed in this book.