The Framework Contract on EU Water and Marine Policies for Nature, Resilience, Sustainable Prosperity and Competitiveness supports the European Commission (DG Environment) in strengthening evidence-based implementation of key EU water legislation. Together with Milieu and Ecologic, Fresh Thoughts focuses on improving the quality, consistency and usability of assessments under the Floods Directive (FD) and the Water Framework Directive (WFD), thereby supporting integrated river basin management and EU resilience objectives.
The objective of the Framework contract is to provide the contracting authority with:
- multilingual, confidential, independent, impartial, timely and quality-assured work and advice on scientific (environmental and health-related), socio-economic, economic and technical issues relevant to the above mentioned Directives;
- technical assistance for in-depth focused assessments of the implementation of the above-mentioned Directives in EU Member States on selected issues linked to specific needs;
- technical assistance to assess information on the replies to legal non-compliance cases mostly opened on the Commission’s initiative, but occasionally in response to a citizen’s complaint, etc.;
- technical assistance for evaluations of the fitness of the existing Directives, and for impact assessments as well as support to possible future non-legislative and legislative follow-up, including through the organisation of consultation activities and analysis of the responses;
- technical assistance for the future development of EU water and marine policies, including in the context of the development and implementation of the announced European Water Resilience Strategy;
- organisation and contribution to workshops/meetings/conferences and preparation of supporting documents, reports, and communication activities/materials.