The contract provided technical assistance to the Commission in assessing the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Floods Directive (FD) by the 28 EU Member States. This included support in developing the assessment methodology and preparing technical reports according to a methodology to be agreed upon with the Commission. These technical reports were used by the Commission as a basis for preparing Commission reports on the implementation of the two Directives. Given that they formed a basis for further analysis supporting the review of the Directives, the Commission intended to publish the implementation reports in spring 2018.
Fresh Thoughts was responsible for checking two Member States and all the international River Basins and held the topic lead for several areas (abstractions and water scarcity, agriculture, objectives and exemptions, climate change, and droughts).