After long negotiations, EU environment ministers yesterday (25 June)
reached a political agreement to tighten rules on harmful industrial
emissions, which are responsible for damage like acid rain. But
tensions with environmentalists are expected to resurface when the bill
returns to the European Parliament later this year or next.
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The issue of large combustion plants proved to be the most divisive.
The Commission originally proposed to tighten emissions limit values by
forcing plants to adopt Best Available Techniques (BATs) by 2016. BAT
technologies are deemed to be the top of the range on the market in
terms of effectiveness in reducing emissions.
Environment ministers agreed to a Czech proposal to apply current
BATs to new combustion plants earlier than envisaged by the
Commission, within two years after the entry into force of the
directive. For existing plants, the deadline was set to 2016, with a
transition period.
The presidency had suggested giving national authorities until the
end 2019 to define "transitional national plans" for reducing emissions
of NOx, SO2 and dust, with a gradual decline in annual national
ceilings.
But at the insistence of a group of member states led by the UK,
Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, ministers decided to
extend this flexibility by another year - until 2020 – in order to give
member states more flexibility.
The Council also set a 96% rate of desulphurisation of fossil fuels for LCPs that cannot meet the agreed SO2 limits.
Derogations to set limits
One of the Commission's main concerns in the revision of the
legislation was to grant a greater role to the Best Available
Techniques Reference Documents (BREFS) in the permitting process at EU
level. The EU executive was hoping to leave member states with only
limited scope to deviate from the BATs when handing out permits to
their industries.
The Commission found allies in Germany, France, Denmark and Austria
in demanding stricter rules for deviating from BATs. But after the
Netherlands switched sides, a bloc headed by the UK and Italy and
including many new member states won assurances that there would be
more flexibility in the new system.
The compromise would consequently allow member states grant
operators permission to exceed the set emission limits in specific
cases where the technical characteristics of the installation,
geographical location and local environmental conditions.