French MEPs Accuse UK of Turning English Channel, North Sea Into ‘Dumping Grounds’

Three French MEPs have claimed that the UK puts public health and the environment at risk by pumping sewage into the English Channel and the North Sea.

“We can’t tolerate that the environment, the economic activity of our fishermen and the health of our citizens are put in danger due to the repeated negligence of the UK in its management of its wastewater. The Channel and the North Sea are not dumping grounds,” the trio stressed in a joint letter to the European Commission on Thursday.

The MEPs are Pierre Karleskind, the chair of the European parliament’s fishing committee, France's former Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau and Stephanie Yon-Courtin, who also serves as a regional councilor in Normandy.

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In the letter, they also asked the European Commission to seek “political and legal” measures to stop the UK's pollution, describing Britain’s recent decision to lower its water quality standards as “unacceptable.”

The MEPs insisted that it “[…] calls into question the efforts made by EU member states over the last 20 years.”

“Since its exit from the European Union, the UK has ignored environmental requirements when it comes to the quality of its water. However, as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a party to the trade and cooperation deal [with the EU], the UK has committed to protecting the seas which surround it and which we share,” they pointed out.

The remarks come after the Liberal Democrats claimed in an analysis that that last year, 22 water company executives in England were paid £24.8 million, including £14.7 million in bonuses, benefits and incentives despite the fact that the executives had failed to resolve most of the nation's sewage pollution-related issues.

The analysis followed the UK environmental campaign group Surfers Against Sewage releasing data, which showed that there has been sewage discharged into coastal waters at beaches in a whole array of counties across England and Wales.

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These included Cornwall, Cumbria, Devon, Essex, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland and Sussex, where pollution warnings were put in place with medics cautioning that those who swim in polluted water may fall ill and suffer from skin infections.

Lib Dem environment spokesperson Tim Farron described the situation as “a national scandal”, adding that “these disgusting polluting habits have made beaches unsafe in the middle of the summer holidays and harmed precious British wildlife.”

Last month, the UK’s Environment Agency said in a report last month that water company bosses should face jail for failing to cope with pollution-related challenges, slamming the sector’s performance in 2021 as the “worst we have seen for years.”