The Legal Component of the ECBSea Project in Georgia was launched in February 2009. In agreement with the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources of Georgia the final outputs of the legal component was decided to be the Concept for New Framework Water Law of Georgia and the Water Sector Convergence Plan for Georgia - a road map outlining necessary steps, measures and possible priorities for convergence with European Union water acquis. The Convergence Plan focuses on the four selected directives:

• Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)
• Flood Risks Directive (2007/60/EC)
• Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC)
• Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC)

The Road Map is based on legal and institutional/implementation gap analysis. It describes the current institutional arrangements, existing gaps, and needed steps to be undertaken in order to approximate Georgian water related legislation to the EU requirements.
The second output of the legal component of the project, the Concept for New Framework Law of Georgia aims to systematize a broad specter of water related legal norms. Pointing at number of regulatory gaps, collisions and inconsistencies between different pieces of existing Georgian water related legislation, the Concept Paper underlines the need in elaborating an integral normative document, which should take into consideration requirements of related Georgian and EU legislation. The Concept Paper covers all major issues to be addressed by the future Law of Georgia on Water and provides a detailed outline of the law.

Along the implementation of the project, tight relationship has been kept with the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources of Georgia, as well as with related international projects having being implemented during the last years in Georgia.

On September 15 2009, a public event was held in Tbilisi to present the legal outcomes of the ECBSea Project activities in Georgia. Officials from the EC Delegation to Georgia, Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources, National Environmental Agency, local self-governance and other organizations, as well as representatives from International Projects and NGOs participated in the event. Both outputs of the legal component of the project: the Concept Paper for New Framework Water Law of Georgia and the Water Sector Convergence Plan for Georgia were presented and broadly discussed.

As a follow up, it was decided to extend the ECBSea project until end of December 2009 in order to develop a first rough draft of the Framework Law on Water of Georgia. The work on the draft law is in progress now. The first draft law is planned to be finalized and delivered to the Ministry by end of December 2009.