Directives issued by the EU Parliament are laws that must be transposed into the regulation of each Member State. Each Member State has two years to incorporate the contents of the Directive into its own regulation system. The Directives contain minimum requirements that must be met, and each Member State has the right to add specific aspects to take into account local circumstances. Today some European countries have already implemented the Directive 2020/2184 content in their own regulation system: Germany, Spain, The Nederland, Italy and Austria. Poland is close to finalize the process and other countries have started their own internal
legal path for the Directive implementation. Unfortunately, at the date of writing this article, no information is from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, and Bulgaria.

The Directive sets several duties that the Member States have to accomplish in the coming years, examples are about communication either to the citizens (water quality and services) and to the EU Commission (on the obtained results in implementing the Directive). Another issue is about the reduction of water losses and reports about the local situation to the Commission.

An important novelty in Directive 2020/2184 is that Member States shall ensure that the supply, treatment and distribution of drinking water is subject to a risk-based approach that covers the whole supply chain from the catchment area, abstraction, treatment, storage and distribution of water up to the taps (or bottle, tanks, etc.). In this respect the distributor of drinking water shall implement a risk assessment for the domestic distribution systems, too.

Another big leap has been made in setting down rules to guarantee the access to drinking water, the article 16 provides the minimum actions, in this respect, to be implemented by Member States that shall:

(a) identify people without access, or with limited access, to water intended for human consumption, including vulnerable and marginalised groups, and reasons for such lack of access;
(b) assess possibilities for improving access for such people;
(c) inform such people about possibilities for connecting to the distribution network or about alternative means of having access to water intended for human consumption; and
(d) take measures that they consider necessary and appropriate to ensure that there is access to water intended for human consumption for vulnerable and marginalised groups.

Member States shall promote the use of tap drinking water, ensuring, where technically feasible, that outdoor and indoor equipment is set up in public spaces. Member States may also take the following measures to promote the use of tap water:

(a) raising awareness of the nearest outdoor or indoor equipment;
(b) launching campaigns to inform citizens about the quality of such water;
(c) encouraging the provision of such water in public administrations and public buildings;
(d) encouraging the provision of such water, for free or for a low service fee, for customers in restaurants, canteens and catering services.