and the laws of 1971 on the protection of surface and groundwater the Central State attempted to reinforce its competence to the detriment of the municipalities. The Minister of Public Health promoted the creation of three public companies of purification responsible of the collective systems of purification and with a power of advice on industrial discharges in surface water. The territory of the companies corresponded to three water basins (the Coast, Meuse and Scheldt), and not to the three Belgian regions. This design did not anticipate the federalisation process launched in 1970. Implementation thus failed once again: The laws on the protection of groundwater and surface water have not been implemented and the purification companies have functionally created. The regionalization of policy and institutions The Regions start to develop their own water policy from 1974 onwards. Intercommunales were created in Wallonia since 1977. In the 1980s the first regional water decrees focus on the protection of potential drinking water. The SNDE breaks apart in the early 1980s, splitting into the Société Wallonne des Distributions d'Eau (SWDE) renamed and the Vlaamse Maatschappij voor Watervoorziening (VMW), renamed De Watergroep According to The Evolution of the Natural Water Regime in Belgium, "[t]he different regional water regimes end up being very dissimilar, as they are inspired by different models from abroad (France and the Netherlands)." Lagging behind on wastewater treatment The 1994 European directive on wastewater raises the pressure on Member States to act on wastewater treatment. Despite major efforts undertaken in this respect, Belgium lagged behind in its implementation of the directive. In 2000 the European Commission observed that the Flanders Region has failed to identify sensitive areas correctly, that the Walloon Region has failed to apply the treatment requirements for urban waste waters discharged into sensitive areas, that both the Brussels and Walloon Regions have failed to provide the Commission with adequate implementation programs and that all the Belgian Regions have failed to ensure that appropriate collection and treatment systems have been established. In 2004 the European Court of Justice ruled condemning Belgium's failure to comply with the wastewater directive in that 114 settlements in Flanders, 60 in Wallonia and Brussels-Capital had either no wastewater collection systems or did not ensure that wastewaters were made subject to specific phosphorus and nitrogen treatment before being discharged into the natural environment. Case study:Wastewater treatment in Brussels The Brussels-Capital Region is part of the Senne