The conference was held on November 7, 2006 in Rome, and was focused on a number of issues: definition and competences of water districts, public participation, relationship between national and regional administrations.
Over 220 people participated to the event. The transposition of the Water Framework Directive in the Italian legislation was formally approved with a government decree (152/2006).But regions, environmentalists, unions, and part of the water sector have criticized the decree because technically not sound and elaborated without consultation. The government intends to modify the decree according to a timetable already been published.
The conference was a public consultation between the Environment Minister, the committee set up by the Minster to revise the decree, the national conference of regions and autonomous provinces, the presidents of the Italian Parliament committees dealing with this issue, and representatives of regional administrations, water basin authorities, unions, NGOs and other social and economic stakeholders. The event has been organized as part of the work programme of the Aquanet Foundation, composed by Gruppo183 and other NGO partners in Europe. THe material and the videos of the event are published in Italian in this page: http://www.gruppo183.org/dettaglio_conv.asp?ID_CONV=2