Over 200 municipal districts failed to make progress in bringing water-treatment facilities and sewage infrastructure in line with the EU's requirements. The majority of them are small districts and the government is concerned that some of them may not be able to meet the deadline both in terms of technical ability and money.

The agriculture, environment and industry and trade ministries in cooperation with regional authorities have until Oct. 31 to work out a general evaluation of the situation and come up with specific proposals on how to address it.

"The decision [to possibly delay] was aimed at giving those districts additional time for fulfilling this requirement," said Tomáš Novotný, deputy environment minister. Novotný added, however, that in his opinion the country will receive enough EU money to address the problems and meet its requirements. According to Novotný, the country will need about 60 billion Kč to fulfill the EU requirements.

Last year the Czech Republic received eight billion Kč from the EU's structural funds and this year it submitted about 20 billion Kč worth of projects, mostly dealing with building water-treatment and sewage facilities. Starting in 2007 the country will get about 15 to 20 billion Kč every year.

Many politicians say the cash is available and there is no reason for municipalities to be dragging their feet. "If we postpone the deadline, it is possible that the EU would decide to start giving less money and the problem would just be delayed," Novotný said. "In my opinion it is necessary to resolve this problem fast and we have quite a lot of EU money to deal with it."

Deadline dispute

Many municipalities, however, see the situation differently.

"When the government agreed to this deadline, it missed some essential factors or failed to find out what the state of affairs was," said Jaroslav Vojta, the chairman of the Water Treatment Association, which unites about 70 municipalities.

Though the government contributes about 10 percent of the money for each water-treatment facility and sewage infrastructure project, municipal authorities are required to provide between 10 and 15 percent.

However, the municipalities insist the money is difficult to find.

"Even if municipalities get money from the European Union or ministries, they still have to contribute their share of financing, and sometimes this share is so high they are not able to provide it," Vojta said. "Putting the deadline off would give us more time to resolve the problem."

If the Czech Republic fails to comply with the requirements within the deadline period, the European Commission may take it to the European court and the country could be fined.