In its common position, the Council leaves it entirely to the Member States’ discretion to lay down groundwater quality standards.

The Commission likewise welcomes Amendment 65, which calls for the adoption of a common methodology in the proposal, so that groundwater quality standards are adopted on the basis of common criteria.

In the longer term, in the light of experience and information as a result of implementing the framework Water Directive, we may then be in a much better position to translate threshold values at national level into EU-wide groundwater quality standards.

At sites under Superfund's jurisdiction where the source of contamination has been removed but the concentration of contaminants in groundwater exceed the groundwater quality standards, natural processes associated with natural attenuation should restore groundwater quality to acceptable levels in a reasonable time frame.

Using the term 'groundwater quality standards' throughout the text clarifies at the same time that, for certain substances, the quality standards in question will be adopted at European Union level and that, for other substances, the standards in question will be adopted by the Member States.