Author(s)

A. Iglesias Alonso

Abstract

The European Union (EU) faces a rather difficult situation regarding water and land use planning. On the one hand, the EU is empowered by the recognition of regulatory formal competences on hydrological planning within the European legal system, but political decisions about land use remain at national level, due to the fact that the EU has not yet received any competences on that subject. This means that the EU can only play the role of encouraging and promoting effective planning and adequate water policies at local and regional levels. On the other hand, and particularly in some southern countries of Europe, the problem of scarcity is a crucial issue which has to be dealt with within a framework of multilevel territorial actors with rather different interests regarding water management. The overall object of this paper is to assess and discuss problems and prospects for regulatory frameworks of water planning and their policy implementation with specific focus on a Mediterranean country like Spain. Keywords: public policy, policy implementation, water scarcity, water planning, Spain, European Union. 1 Planning as an instrument of public policy: the case of water policy in an EU Mediterranean Country (Spain) 1.1 Water scarcity in Spain and its policy making process Policy making can be explained from three different perspectives. The first one is the rational choice where all the actors behave in a way that allows them to maximize benefits and minimise costs. The second one is the organizational output which emphasises that a policy is the result of the interactions between a

Keywords

public policy, policy implementation, water scarcity, water planning, Spain, European Union.