European Union – Environment. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that Directive (EC) 2000/60 had to be interpreted as not precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provided that the price of water services invoiced to the consumer included not only a variable component calculated according to the volume of water actually consumed by the person concerned, but also a fixed component which was not connected with that volume.